Ferrovial's British airports operator BAA said today that it is putting its Gatwick airport in London up for sale.
'We have decided to begin the process of selling Gatwick Airport immediately,' Colin Matthews, chief executive of BAA, said.
Sector sources said Gatwick, one of the Europe's busiest airports, could fetch between £2 to 3 billion sterling.
The move is a response to Britain's Competition Commission, which last month said in a provisional ruling that BAA must sell three of its seven UK airports, including two of London's Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted and one of Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland.
BAA said it disagreed with the Competition Commission's analysis, and said it will try to keep its Stansted airport as a change of ownership could interfere with the airport's expansion.
'At Stansted, we believe that a change of ownership would interfere with the process of securing planning approval for a second runway, which remains a key feature of Government air transport policy,' Matthews said.
