BAA Announces Flying Start to the Year With 10.2% Growth in April Stansted Passes 10 Million Passenger Milestone.

Business Editors

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2000

BAA plc (Pink Sheets:BAAPY) the UK-based airport company, today announced that its seven UK airports made in April an exceptionally strong start to the summer season, handling 10.1 million passengers, an increase of 10.2% on April 1999.

While this is partly explained by the late Easter, the underlying growth (revealed by the combination of March and April results) is also strong at 6.7%.

For the 12 months to April, Stansted passed the milestone of 10 million passengers per annum as the expansion of the low cost European scheduled market continued to produce high levels of growth (34.8% for the 12 months).

April 2000 against April 1999

In April this year, Stansted traffic grew by 43.9% traffic (97% in the case of European scheduled traffic). Gatwick grew 9.3% with particularly strong growth in the North Atlantic market (+12.3%) and European charter market (+13.0%). Heathrow added 7.7% with other long haul traffic growing by 15.1% and Southampton added 11.4%. In Scotland, Edinburgh grew by 8.8% with the expansion largely occurring in the domestic and European scheduled markets.

The strongest growing market segment across all the airports was the long haul market (excluding North Atlantic) which recorded 14.6% growth, followed by the European scheduled market (+13.4%) and European charter traffic (+11.6%). The North Atlantic also achieved strong growth of 9.6%. South East Asia traffic generally continues to improve.

Air transport movements were up by just 1.6% in April, indicating growth in average passenger loads of close to 9%.

BAA ordinary shares trade on the London Stock Exchange; prices may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbol BAA LN, on the Reuter Equities 2000 Service under BAA.L and on Quotron under BAANU.EU. BAA ADRs, each equal to one ordinary share, appear on the pink sheets under BAAPY.

For further information on BAA plc and its operations please see the company's website at http://www.baa.co.uk, which includes full details of passenger traffic figures for the past four years.

BAA Traffic Summary: April 2000


Terminal                           %      (a) 12 months        %
Passengers (000's)       Month   Change     to Apr 00        Change
Heathrow               5,450.5      7.7      62,660.0           2.7
Gatwick                2,521.2      9.3      30,628.9           3.4
Stansted                 931.6     43.9      10,185.7          34.8
London Area Total      8,903.3     11.1     103,474.5           5.3
Southampton               68.3     11.4         774.3           2.5
Glasgow                  512.9      4.4       6,802.9           3.4
Edinburgh                423.5      8.8       5,248.2          12.9
Aberdeen                 193.1     -5.7       2,425.9          -6.9
Scottish Total         1,129.5      4.0      14,477.0           4.6
BAA Total             10,101.1     10.2     118,725.9           5.2



Air Transport                       %    (a) 12 months         %
Movements                Month    Change   to Apr 00         Change
Heathrow              37,875       2.5      455,109             2.8
Gatwick               19,815       2.1      247,784             1.3
Stansted              11,034       9.7      140,665            19.9
London Area Total     68,724       3.5      843,558             4.8
Southampton            2,265       8.8       25,410            -7.0
Glasgow                6,790      -1.5       87,347             3.7
Edinburgh              6,704      -1.8       85,887            11.5
Aberdeen               6,103     -11.6       79,402           -10.8
Scottish Total        19,597      -5.0      252,636             0.9
BAA Total             90,586       1.6    1,121,604             3.6

Notes:

      (a) The 12 month period May 1999 to April 2000 compared with the
period May 1998 to April 1999 Above data excludes Air Taxi passengers
and Air Taxi movements.


Market Comparison: April 2000

                       BAA Total      BAA Total
Market                    Apr 99         Apr 00     % Change
                          (000s)         (000s)

Domestic                   1,703          1,750          2.8
Eire                         474            486          2.6
European Scheduled         3,335          3,782         13.4
European Charter (b)         755            842         11.6
North Atlantic             1,568          1,718          9.6
Other Long Haul            1,328          1,522         14.6

Total                      9,163         10,101         10.2


      (b) includes North African Charter

      Note: Origins and destinations are classified according to
ultimate origin or destination of aircraft in the case of multi sector
flights.

      Note: Figures for the market sectors have been rounded. Totals as
per Traffic Summary.