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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reacted positively to the UK Competition Commission's Statement of Issues with respect to the BAA Airports Market Investigation, published on Thursday, but said there was no time to waste. 

Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's Director General and CEO said: "The Competition Commission has confirmed what every traveller through a BAA airport knows: that it needs desperately fixing and fast. The current airport structure and regulatory system is not working. Lack of investment by the BAA airport monopoly is delivering embarrassingly-low service levels on everything from security wait-times to baggage delivery and almost everything in-between. This must change."

"The regulator has failed to put in place effective incentives to deliver acceptable service levels. As a result, Heathrow is an out-of-control monopoly that gets away with pocketing a 42% margin at the expense of the 68 million beleaguered passengers using its poor facilities each year."

"The Competition Commission's inquiry will play a critical role in defining the best long-term airport structure to deliver world-class airport facilities at the most important global hub, " according to Bisignani.

"At the same time, we cannot wait a year to start improving. Heathrow traffic is down 1.7% while the rest of the world is growing. The unfortunate reality is that passengers are avoiding the mess at Heathrow and this is impacting the UK's competitiveness. The UK's unique one-bag rule must be reviewed and brought inline with global standards. And immediate further investment by Heathrow inadequate staff and equipment to handle demand is urgently needed."

The Competition Commission (CC) has published an issues statement as part of its investigation into the supply of airport services by BAA in the UK. BAA owns seven airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Southampton in England; and Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen in Scotland.

The statement follows the initial process of information gathering, including visits to airports and holding hearings with interested parties. It identifies the key questions being addressed.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) made the reference to the CC on 29 March 2007. The CC will now determine whether there are any features of the market that prevent, restrict or distort competition and, if so, what remedial action might be taken.

Christopher Clarke, Inquiry Group Chairman and CC Deputy Chairman said: "We have already collected extensive evidence from a wide range of parties including BAA itself, the CAA, the OFT, airlines and industry bodies, other providers of services to the airports, consumer and business groups, as well as government in both England and Scotland."

"We are well aware of the concerns expressed in the media and elsewhere over the operations of BAA’s airports, especially Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick. These include delays experienced by passengers going through security or immigration, as well as the availability of facilities such as lifts, escalators and travelators, and other aspects which may affect passengers’ experience passing through airports, such as overcrowding, signage and cleanliness."

"Our task is to seek and assess the evidence on all aspects of the seven airports relevant to a competition inquiry. We are therefore looking carefully at a wide range of issues, many of which are complex and interrelated as will be readily apparent from today’s detailed statement. Some may be short-term but given the nature of airports, others involve much longer timescales stretching over the next 10 or 15 years."

"We are looking at how common ownership could affect BAA’s incentives both to invest in and develop its airports, and operate them. We are particularly assessing how the quantity, specification, quality, location and timeliness of capital expenditure, ranging from capacity to security, might be affected by common ownership. Similarly, in terms of operations, we are examining how it might affect incentives to improve operating efficiencies as well as levels of service, including recently, and most notably, security."

"We are also considering the consequences of the airports’ regulatory regime which is very different from most other regulated industries. In addition, we are assessing the impact of restrictions on airport development and constraints on capacity in terms of runways, terminals, other facilities, and airspace for planning or other reasons."

"The purpose of the statement is to share our current thinking on what issues we are addressing and to provide the opportunity for interested parties to submit new or further evidence. At this stage, we have no preconceived ideas of what our conclusions might be; and if we were to identify competition problems, what the appropriate remedies might be. It is much too early for that. Our next stage is to analyse and assess all of the evidence and following further hearings, we expect to publish for consultation in the early part of 2008 a document setting out our ‘emerging thinking’ on all the key issues. We currently aim to reach our provisional findings around this time next year."