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Virgin ponders joint Gatwick bid

Virgin ponders joint Gatwick bid Virgin Atlantic is reportedly open to joining any group trying to acquire Gatwick Airport.

Sir Richard said recently in an interview with the Telegraph that Virgin is "open to being courted by anyone who is interested in bidding".

The airline also indicated in a statement that "it is very early days in terms of Gatwick's future ownership and so we cannot comment on parties we may have held talks with - but we are watching developments closely".

"We are interested in the possibility of bidding as part of a consortium,'' the statement continued, before adding that "airlines like us have extensive customer service skills. We would like to inject those skills into running an airport".

This follows a pre-ruling from the Competition Commissions that BAA's ownership of the three main London hubs - Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick - was proving counter to the best interests of airlines and passengers.

Virgin has previous experience of overseeing airport infrastructure as part of a seven-strong airline group holding a 42 per cent stake in National Air Traffic Control Services.

Equally, an analyst from DLA Piper told Bloomberg that anti-competition issues may not be such a problem as Virgin does not have a dominating presence at Gatwick.

Bloomberg also reports financial experts at Exane BNP Paribas as suggesting that Gatwick's value could be as high as £3.4 billion.

Virgin could potentially be joined in the consortium by the Manchester Airports Group and the group that both owns and operates Frankfurt Airport.

There are also rumours that low-cost carriers Ryanair, easyJet and Monarch could be interested in joining any potential consortium.


Airport News posted on 03 September 2008

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