Happy Wanderer...and others...
On Friday evening I followed 2 'Suits in an executive car off the airport west entrance which came from down by the AFT area. They turned their car into the pub...so did I. They stood at the bar and ordered 2 meals from the '2 for a Tenner section' and said to the barman, " We can only afford that now we have bought the airport and this will be our local when we come up here so we hope the food is good".
I was stood at the side of them and they continued to explain briefly to him that hopefully the trade would get back to normal for him and the airport in the coming weks as they were anticipating opening for 'full cargo facilities on the 18th Jan". Barman casually asked what would it be used for and the replied "freight and General Aviation". He asked if airliners would come in again like Thomson and they said "never say never, but not anticipated'.
IMHO, there was no reason for them NOT to be who they were and no reason for them to say any more ...they certainly were not boasting about it. Other overheard snippets certainly made it plain to me they were who they appeared to be. They were CERTAINLY in the aviation business and certainly acted like 'big cheeses'. There were no other 'known aviator regulars' in there except for me at the time.
Nobody at the Council would confirm (OR deny) that today when I called and asked for it to be substantiated.