The airports operator BAA, the owner of Standsted, Heathrow and the three biggest airports of Scotland, is to begin a sale process for Gatwick airport “immediately”.

It assured that staff, customers and businesses would benefit from BAA’s sale of Gatwick.

The decision is fallout from the Competition Commission’s report which identified some “significant competition problems” due to company’s dominance in the industry. The report proposed that BAA stopped operating two of its three airports in London.

Gatwick, located in West Sussex near Crawley, is the busiest airport in the UK, next only to Heathrow and handled 35 million passengers last year.

According to Colin Matthews, chief executive BAA, Gatwick had been a valuable asset of BAA and the decision to sell it was quite tough. He believed that ultimately everyone would benefit from the resolution of this current uncertainty.

Mathews added that soon after the publication of Competition Commission’s provisional findings, BAA assured to respond realistically, though it disagreed with the report and the basis of Commission’s analysis.

He informed that the group wanted to continue its operations at three other airports and three Scottish hubs.

The Competition Commission is likely to order BAA to sell Standsted and Gatwick airports and one of either Edinburgh or Glasgow airports.

Matthews said that BAA will present its case in respect of the South East and Scotland airports.