Spanish-owned airport operator BAA has won its appeal against a ruling by the UK Competition Commission that it must sell three of its airports on the basis that the commission was biased. BAA has already agreed to sell Gatwick to Global Infrastructure Partners for some £1.5 billion (€1.7 billion), but now has a stay of execution on the sale of the other two airports – London Stansted and either Glasgow or Edinburgh. … [Read more...] about BAA wins appeal on airport sale

Freight traffic at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport slumped by 18.4 per cent in 2009 from a year ago to 1.28 million tonnes. The decline in Amsterdam’s cargo traffic has bottomed out with volumes forecast to grow 1-2 per cent in 2010, according to the CEO of the Schiphol Group, Jos Nijhuis. The slump in 2009 traffic to the lowest level since 2000 exceeded Schiphol’s forecast of a 15 per cent decline largely as a result of deep capacity cuts at Air France-KLM, the … [Read more...] about Schiphol forecasts 2% cargo growth in 2010

Airfreight volumes at Frankfurt Airport continued their upward trend in December 2009. Nearly 174,000 tonnes of airfreight representing a significant 29.1 per cent jump over December 2008 and a four-fold increase over the seven per cent rise in November 2009. For the full year, airfreight tonnage dropped by 10.1 per cent to 1.8 million tonnes and airmail tonnage dropped to nearly 80,000 tonnes. … [Read more...] about Airfreight up for Frankfurt

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has dispatched a portable, temporary control tower to Haiti today to help assist with aircraft operations at Port-au-Prince International Airport. The tower is being transported aboard a chartered freighter and the FAA said its technicians will install and prepare it for service which will take about 48 hours once it arrives in Port-au-Prince. The portable tower is about 13 metres long, 4 metres high and 2.5 metres wide, and weighs about 11.4 tonnes. … [Read more...] about FAA sends temporary ATC tower to Haiti

Responding to criticisms that it has turned away civilian aircraft carrying vital relief material for Haiti’s earthquake stricken capital of Port-au-Prince, the US military which is currently running the crippled airport, said the one-runway airport is simply overwhelmed. Lack of ramp space is the key problem accounting for the bottleneck according to military officials. The facility can hold about one wide-body and five narrowbody aircraft, as well as three smaller aircraft at any … [Read more...] about Haiti’s damaged airport struggles with the load