So Cargoman and Momentary Lapse, you believe that business that partially depend on their leased property at/services to the airport should have a say in how the company is run.
Give me strength. On that basis, as a tax payer I should have a personal say in how every government department is run, every shop in the Trafford Centre should have a say in how Peel Holdings does its business and, within aviation, your idea for Manchester should apply to every airport worldwide.
For decades the airport has been run for the benefit of, firstly, the City ratepayers, in the last 35 years for the benefit of those in first the GMC, then the Metropolitan Boroughs - and still is.
The current management isn't doing very well but having management by committee turns racehorses into camels.
Selling the airport would lead to an even worse performance. Your "stakeholders" know bu**er all about running an airport.
British corporate history is littered with companies succesful in one discipline making an absolute shambles of businesses in other disciplines which they have taken over on the basis that "management is the same in any industry".
As for banks being more involved - don't you read the papers or watch the news on TV?
What is needed are Councillors like the long lamemted Gordon Thomas who had the airport at heart, kept the management under close scrutiny and wasn't afraid to scrutinise, praise and criticise in equal measure.
Gordon Sweetapple once said to me that the airport had a reputation for good management because it was managed by an excellent mix of industry professionals, professional local government officers who had learned about aviation from their earliest days and was overseen by councillors determined to make the most of their asset and both improve and develop it on a continuing basis, something currently that seems to have diminished and would be totally lost if sold to a faceless company from elsewhere.