Riverboat,
Nothing to do with TUI. A simple part of the original Section 106 agreement governing the Parcelforce site, which dictated that the terminal was moved over to the south side of the airport.
To the best of my knowledge, no passenger numbers were ever mentioned in the previous outline applications.
Looking through the history of this, it would appear that several factors have come together to make the scare story far worse than the reality of the operations we have today:
1) The White Paper, which suggested that CVT could handle upto 9m pax per year - which makes central government's refusal for 2m even more bizarre.
2) The whole Rugby Airport hoax - which created a huge fighting force, many of whom then had nothing to do when they got their faux victory. The "scrapping" of this project was announced on the same day that Thomsonfly announced plans to set up base. In hinsight, I'm not so sure that this was the best timing, but TUI's logic has to be understood from within the industry context.
3) Tfly announcing base plans overnight - other airports had seen incremental growth, but CVT went from 0 to 4 based aircraft overnight.
4) The ability of well-funded local opponents to whip up media sympathy against the "giants" of TUI, which made 2m pa sound like a massive figure. Relative to zero, I guess it always was. Relative to BHX, or the proposed Rugby, or the UK industry as a whole, it always has been a drop in the ocean.
I am guessing that these factors, together with the airport's inability to put together a convincing ASAS and the presence of you-know-who just up the road, have all ultimately worked against the airport.
Plaskitt must be rubbing his hands with glee right now - after all, his seat is very marginal, and we know how much he can now parade his climate caring credentials.
Of course, we all know this to be a total farce - but since when has any politician or media outlet had any sense of proportion? The government gets to continue to push forward plans for vast expansion at STN, BHX etc, whilst getting to look nice and green in Coventry.
All they have really done is pick on a very easy target. But who can ever cry "bully" in this industry?