Ryanair Sues Stansted Over Airport Charges
Cheap flights carrier Ryanair announced its latest spat with an aviation authority yesterday – this time about alleged overcharging at London Stansted Airport.
Ryanair operates an incredible 93 different routes from Stansted, offering customers cheap flights to Barcelona, Seville and Tenerife, among others. The airline's combative chiefe executive Michael O'Leary was angry about what he regards as "monopoly abuses and overcharging" by airport bosses of the hosted airlines.
As a result, yesterday he instructed his lawyers to lodge an official complaint with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Competition Commission, calling on them to revise Stansted's price cap. It also demanded a £175 million rebate from Stansted.
Mr O'Leary charged that Stansted's policies between 2007 and this year had led to charges doubling per passenger and had caused a 16 per cent increase in airport costs, which in turn had caused its traffic to fall by 24 per cent.
"Stansted's regulatory accounts, in our opinion, clearly show the BAA gaming the regulatory system, and abusing its monopoly power to inflate its RAB and inflate its costs in order to overcharge airlines and passengers at Stansted," he fumed. "The sooner Stansted is sold, the sooner it will be run efficiently to meet the needs of its low fare airlines and enable them to stimulate traffic and tourism growth, to promote choice and competition."
Mr O'Leary insisted that more competition would lead to more cheap flights and greater choice for passengers.
For its part, BAA rejected the complaint, with chief executive Colin Matthews saying: "It's not a coincidence that he's raising this issue now. He's got a direct interest in depressing the value of Stansted."
Budget Airline News posted by 
on 28 July 2011
cheap flights, cheap flights to Barcelona, Stansted Airport,
http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-to-launch-complaint-against-baa-stansted-for-overcharging-and-monopoly-abuses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/8666680/Ryanair-demands-175m-from-BAA-over-Stansted-charges.html
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