you get airports for peppercorn rates
Brisbane's lease cost $1.4 billion in 1997, thats $2.3 billion in todays money. Hardly peppercorn, and hardly "given it". Did you read the article in the aviation section of Friday's Australian regarding airport funding. The author pointed out it is almost impossible to pay the running costs from purely aviation related activities. No one can afford to run something at a loss for long (except the government, and thats what happened when they did, and that's why they got rid of them). The truth is, in the majority of cases, it is the non-aviation related activities that are subsidising the rest, just to make it work. It seems there are arseclowns on both sides.