After BAA upped their parking charges a couple of years ago, and refused to negotiate with my airline, I found myself out of work when our aircraft was moved elsewhere. By that time, STN had become a complete **** hole for a customer experience. I would walk through the terminal hall at 2am to find hundreds of eastern europeans in their sleeping bags waiting on the first flight of the day. It looked awful. Coupled with scumbag airlines, it has become a low cost airport. I'm sure that was not the vision when the excellent facilities were built.
It would not surprise me that BAA now have a scorched earth policy. Selling the airfield to someone else can only be a good thing. I now operate out of Gatwick, and the amount of investment being put into the airport is staggering. The new owners are really impressive, and have a policy of attracting operators to maximise the runway. Basically, BAA let the airport rot, and now a new owner has bought change and investment which is well overdue. One hopes that once BAA are out of the picture, then STN has a chance to become a much better airport with more than RYR and EZY.
GLA and EDI are also awful under BAA.