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No frills carriers slam BAA
Easyjet and Ryanair have accused airports operator BAA of fleecing customers to pay for an “unnecessary” redevelopment of Stansted.
In a rare display of unity, the no-frills carriers claimed passenger service charges will soar from £2.89 to £8 by 2008 – an increase of 300% – to build a “folly on the grandest scale”. They claimed even passengers at Gatwick and Heathrow will be expected to chip in up to £1 per passenger.
While acknowledging Stansted needs expanding, the airlines, which account for 80% of the airport’s passengers, claimed BAA is planning to build “a long haul airport capable of taking an A380 with marble-lined terminals to match.”
The carriers have called on the Civil Aviation Authority to block the plans.
Easyjet chief operating officer Ed Winter, who is chairman of the Stansted Airport Consultative Committee, dubbed the plans as ‘the great consumer rip-off’
“It should send a shiver down the spine of every airline passenger in the UK,” he said. “It [BAA] is planning to build a folly on the grandest scale that is unnecessary and unwanted. Before sensible low airport charges attracted the likes of easyjet to Stansted, it was little more than a white elephant in an Essex field with a single runway. BAA seems determined to make it a white elephant in an Essex field with two runways.”
Ryanair director of operations David O’Brien added: “Ordinary passengers should not be forced to pay higher fares just to finance another BAA Taj Mahal.”
A BAA spokeswoman insisted consumer demand was fuelling the plans. She added passenger charges would rise to £5 by 2007 and then to £7 or £8 between 2008 and 2013.
Responding to claims Gatwick and Heathrow would part fund the work, the spokeswoman said: “If this was funded as a stand-alone project it would be delayed for several years. But the £1 charge is only a suggestion at this stage.”
Report by Steve Jones
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