LONDON, ENGLAND - BAA Ltd's charges at London Stansted airport could almost double depending on price controls set out by the UK's aviation regulator.

Charges could rise to between 4.50 pounds (S$12) and 12.50 pounds by 2013 depending on which pricing method is used, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said yesterday in a statement on its website.

The regulator had previously indicated that fees may range from 6 pounds to 12.50 pounds a person depending on which pricing method it favoured.

The CAA, with input from the UK's Competition Commission, sets the maximum fees that price-regulated airports are allowed to charge airlines.

Charges are usually passed to customers, leading carriers such as Ryanair Holdings plc and EasyJet plc, Europe's two-biggest discount airlines, to criticise the regulator and the airport operator for boosting fares.

'Devising an approach to regulating Stansted is unusually challenging,' CAA group director of economic regulation Harry Bush said yesterday in a Regulatory News Service statement.

'It needs to take proper account of uncertainties around forecasting of market trends, the scale of the proposed investment and the strongly held - but sharply differing - views of the airport and its principal airline customers.'

The proposed price controls will be studied by the Competition Commission, which will take about six months to conduct an inquiry before reporting back to the CAA, which will make a final decision in March 2009. -- Bloomberg