The brave decision would have been to allow Infratil to close it, or bring in a new owner with different priorities (maintenance, manufacturing, etc). Nationalization is a weak decision, and one which my Scottish friends will regret.
With all due respect LGS I would suggest that decision the Scottish Government took today is a brave decision as simply closing things down is in my opinion a very weak decision and one which previous UK governments have been good at. The government's decision is being backed by all parties and the intention is quite clearly stated as that of supporting the airport to survive and prosper and then sell it back into private hands. In this type of situation nationalisation is a preferred option to simply 'wielding the axe'. I as a taxpayer am quite happy that some of my well earned cash is going to support 1400 local jobs and if they do enable the airfield to prosper then we will have three excellent aviation assets in PIK, GLA and EDI across the central belt and ones which will offer the Scottish population choice, convenience and reasonable fares.