AIRPORTS operator BAA yesterday reported a £51 million operating loss for the first three months of the year, blaming the costs of tighter security measures and the troubled launch of Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport.
The results were published as British Airways announced that its long-haul operations would not be fully transferred to T5 until October.
BAA, owned by Spanish infrastructure firm Ferrovial, spent £24m in the first quarter on getting T5 up and
running.
BAA said it hoped to recoup some of its higher security and maintenance costs through higher airport charges, which came into force in April.
Yesterday's figures – which follow a profit of £107m last year – revealed net debt of £7.4 billion, up 6.7 per cent. Earlier this month, BAA said it was raising £400m from shareholders.
BAA reported that 32.3 million passengers passed through its airports in the three-month period, with the leap year and the earlier Easter holiday offsetting the impact of the T5 troubles and disruption caused by the crash landing of a British Airways flight at Heathrow in January.
T5 was besieged by difficulties on opening, with hundreds of flights cancelled and delays caused by baggage-handling problems.
Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive, told MPs this month that incomplete construction work on T5 contributed to the building's botched debut – pointing the finger at BAA.
BAA is also under fire for its monopoly on airports in the south-east of England. Last month the Competition Commission said its ownership of seven UK airports, including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, "may not be serving well the interests of either airlines or passengers".
The commission's damning report signalled there would be a shake-up of the way major UK airports were run and regulated.
The UK government responded by ordering a review, including an investigation into the charges that BAA can impose on airlines for using Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports.
British Airways and BAA yesterday revealed that – after some long-haul flights are moved from Terminal 4 to T5 on 5 June – the remaining services will be transferred in two phases.
The first of these will be on 17 September and the second at the end of October.
BA had originally planned to move all its long-haul flights, apart from some to Singapore and Australia, to T5 on 30 April.
This was put back to June after the catastrophic opening of T5 on 27 March.
The full article contains 414 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
