Perhaps it would be useful to actually add a few facts to this discussion.
A condition of the CAX planning consent granted yesterday stipulates that Stobart must resurface the runway and provide a passenger terminal facility, among other things, so Niknak's assumptions are incorrect when he says that "there will be no redevelopment of the airport infrastructure."
As far as their current HQ lease is concerned, there has always had to be negotiation of some form of extension to its expiry date as not even the previous planning application could have achieved a completion date of February 2009.
As far as SEN is concerned the new owners' lack of aviation experience matters very little as the development plan is already in place and it is the finance to make it achievable which Stobarts bring to the party. The fact that they have appointed Alastair Welch to be MD of Stobart Air to oversee all their planned aviation activities shows that they recognise they need an experienced hand on the tiller.
I don't think anyone really knows yet just what they plan from an air operations point of view, but they wouldn't be talking about "niche freight" operations at SEN unless they had done some homework. More interesting
is their stated intention to ensure that a CAX-SEN passenger schedule is established once the SEN rail station is built. Could this involve Stobart liveried aircraft operated under an ACMI arrangement with an existing carrier - certainly an interesting prospect. I can envisage an realistic schedule for such an operation which would offer a CAX route to both London (SEN) and, say, Amsterdam or Paris.
Interesting times ahead for both airports.