Phileas,
I think NQY is a long way from saturation - has it not been more like 500k pax pa? Didn't plans call for 1m+?
With PLH having slowly withered away, NQY's catchment will have spread east - especially for people coming down from Scotland.
My understanding is that most UK hotels struggle to reach 60% occupancy.
Rather than fussing about one man's salary, I'd be asking how much pax are put off by the extra airport fee, not to mention two doses of APD for domestic pax.
If the man in charge had a performance bonus - say £10k pa for each additional 50k pax, that would be better still.