Tratto da http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ar...902734,00.html

Ryanair slams BAA plans
Dominic O’Connell

BRITISH airports group BAA is this week expected to unveil plans to spend about £1.75 billion (€2.59 billion) on the first phase of its controversial new runway and terminal project at Stansted airport, which Ryanair has vowed to fiercely fight.
The development will expand the Essex airport to allow it to handle 50m passengers a year, compared to its current 21m but Ryanair, which accounts for 60% of the traffic, has derided the plan as “grandiose”.



The runway will not be ready to take flights before 2013 at the earliest, BAA will say, with construction work unlikely to start until 2009.

Mike Clasper, chief executive, is also likely to confirm that the full cost of the runway project — subsequent phases will add extra terminal capacity and beef up transport links — could reach £4 billion.

Ryanair believes it could be built for as little as £400,000 and is threatening to boycott the new terminal by checking in passengers online and ferrying them directly to the runway. Easyjet, the other main budget carrier operating from Stansted, also opposes the plans.

Both airlines have insisted they will not pay the higher airport charges necessary to fund the development, with Ryanair in particular vociferous in its opposition, even threatening to send its aircraft elsewhere.

The Stansted announcement is expected to come hard on the heels of BAA’s first significant international expansion in several years.