Ryanair withdraws from London Stansted sale process

Ryanair announced (09-Oct-2012) it has withdrawn from the London Stansted sale process, "having been advised by BAA Stansted's owner, Ferrovial, that it will exclude Ryanair (and any Ryanair related consortium) from the Stansted sale process". The carrier continued, "Since Ryanair does not wish to prejudice other potential investors in Stansted, it has written to all investors/consortia it has held discussions with to advise them that Ryanair will not participate in the sale process or seek a minority stake". Ryanair's Stephen McNamara said: "We regret Ferrovial's decision to exclude Ryanair from the Stansted sale process and the failure of the Competition Commission to restrain this anti-competitive and anti-customer behaviour by Ferrovial. While we fully accept that Ferrovial is entirely free not to sell to Ryanair, we fail to understand how it can comply with competition law if Stansted's biggest customer, accounting for 70% of the traffic, is excluded from this sale process". [more - original PR]