BAA fights on to avoid selling Stansted

The airports operator BAA is to ask the Supreme Court to overturn a Competition Commission ruling forcing it to sell Stansted airport.

In the latest stage of a long legal battle, the Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the commission's 2009 ruling that BAA exerted a dominant hold on airports in Scotland and the South-east of England. BAA owns London's Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, as well as Southampton and Stansted in England, plus Glasgow and Aberdeen airports in Scotland.

The group, which is owned by the Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial, agreed in April to sell Edinburgh airport to Global Infrastructure Partners for $1.3bn (£839m).

Global Infrastructure Partners already owns London's City and Gatwick airports.

Stansted is Britain's fourth-busiest airport.