22 April 2008
Unite National Officer, Steve Turner says "Breaking up the airports would cause even more travel chaos and undermine the investment needed to improve services. It would lead to attacks on workers' terms and conditions and threatens to kick-start a 'race to the bottom' on labour costs. This would be strongly resisted by Unite.
The Competition Commission have failed to understand the economics of the industry. Unfettered competition would not benefit passengers. A break up of BAA would end cost subsidies and potentially lead to higher landing charges on users as well as undermining future necessary investment plans.
We will continue to engage with the Competition Commission on our concerns in the run up to its interim report to be published later this year.
The airlines seemed to have declared 'competitive war' on BAA but squeezing the hardly generous pay for airport workers would only lead to people leaving and making it harder to recruit . Given the necessary time to security clear and train people, it's a recipe for travel chaos which would benefit no one."
