There was me thinking the reason for the sale was to bring in a commercial partner to help raise capital for re development.
I have records showing the airport making money 20 odd years ago. Do you have evidence to say it was losing money 15 years ago?
The glaringly obvious is that a one off sale of land to housing developers is only going to raise a one off figure which may or may not be spent on the airport. On top of this DBC even suggest this would stifle growth, they mention pax growth but let not forget that GA in the circuit will actually be more annoying. After all Peels strategy is now diversification of operations (I'm all for this) but noise is noise and whether it's an airport with 200000 movements and 150k pax or 200000 movements and 1m pax you get the same problems.
I supported Peel when they came, I believed it would be good for the airport, but now I see them for who they are. They have run the place into the ground and this cannot be argued any more! They are after one thing and one thing only development land and to hell with the airport!