Something I have been pondering for a spell is to wonder why Prestwick is so popular with the military whilst Newquay is scarcely used for transatlantic flights yet some time ago in the good ole days of RAF St.Mawgan I recall seeing three USN C-9s there on one occasion en route to St. Johns and seemingly the distance is virtually the same as using Prestwick.
PIK was a large military base for the USAF then later the navy moved in with HMS Gannet still on site so there's been an ongoing military presence. What keeps so much heavy military traffic coming through I believe is that there were some very driven people with good contacts who went out to keep the relationship alive and touted for business, like er....a business.
When the local authority get involved with taxpayers money, theres' a lot more process and lot less flexibility. Oh and PIK has a lot of pilots with golfclubs as baggage.