British airport operator BAA said third-quarter earnings rose, helped by continued growth at London's Heathrow airport, where passenger traffic is holding up despite global economic uncertainty.
"Revenues rose 7.1% in the third-quarter and were up 8% at Heathrow where traffic rose 1.5% during the period, despite tough comparisons from a strong summer in 2010," Jose Leo, BAA's chief financial officer said. "Our expectation for 2011 was to grow earnings by 15% and we expect to do that," he added.
BAA, majority owned by Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial, has, recently reported a steady rise in traffic to emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil, and said steady growth in US traffic had also helped.
BAA, which owns London's Heathrow - Europe's busiest airport - as well as Southampton and Stansted in England and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports in Scotland, said it expected the company to perform well in the coming year despite economic uncertainty in Europe and the US that analysts believe could hit passenger numbers.
"We, and many other players in our market are cautious about the coming months but Heathrow is well equipped to deal with recessions and downturns," said Leo.
BAA last week put Edinburgh airport up for sale, bowing to a UK watchdog's order to sell a Scottish airport in order to pave the way for better competition. After a two-year battle with BAA over whether it exerted a dominant hold on British airports, the UK's Competition Commission told BAA earlier this month that it must sell one of its Scottish airports before it disposes of London Stansted airport. Analysts value Edinburgh airport at around £600m sterling.
BAA said a judicial review of the UK competition watchdog's ruling requiring it to sell off Stansted would take place in December 2011.
Earlier, BAA said adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 17% to £842.2m in the nine months to the end of September on revenues 10.2% higher at £1.7 billion. It said traffic at its airports rose 4.3% during the period, with Heathrow traffic up 6.1%.
