Back to the original poster
I'm conscious that this is a Biggin Hill forum and I my original intention was to tease out the name of the MD that Great Charmer has alluded to. So I might as well ask the direct question, "Great Charmer, what name was it that you heard in connection with the MD's job at Biggin Hill?"
[ For the SEN thread if the mods want to move it: I think my understanding of the figures is better than others that post on here. The profit made my be impaired by certain one-off costs that the airport will not see again next year but the vast majority of infrastructure and start-up costs will be either amortised over the long term or accrued for over the medium term in line with the income projections from the EasyJet agreement, and as such do not affect the EBITDA results that Stobart released.
I think the figures were significantly poorer than expected and that is why Stobart decided to up their passenger forecasts from 2m pax per annum (almost no chance of a payback on investment in the next 500 years) to 5m pax per annum (a slightly better chance of a payback in the next 25 - 50 years).
Until the airport gets some new year-round based aircraft they will be forever reliant on the easyJet contract which will likely have a 90 day termination clause in it somewhere. Loco's don't pay a lot to be at airports - if they pay at all. The airport has to derive their income from car parking and concessions in the terminal building. Maybe the new extension once opened will have more in the way of quality concessions to raise income levels.