Thread by @MartynMcL

EXC Prestwick Airport, the focus of Congress probe into US defence spending & at Trump Turnberry, has allegedly waived £1m+ in fees for US military aircraft to safeguard its ties with US DoD & boost military traffic. My @TheScotsman investigation. Thread 👇scotsman.com/news/prestwick…

Multiple sources familiar with Prestwick’s operations & US military business told me this alleged practice is fully known to airport management, and is designed to increase traffic at the struggling @scotgov owned hub as well as protect its ‘lucrative’ US Defence Dept fuel deal.

The cost of the service fees - also known as aircraft handling fees or ramp fees - varies, but can reach several thousand pounds for Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transports. I’m told by several contacts the cumulative cost of the alleged waivers runs into seven figures.

Prestwick Airport, remember, is owned by the Scottish Government, and operated on a  full commercial basis. Its annual losses run to £7.6m and it's reliant on £38.4m in loans from Scottish ministers (i.e. taxpayers). The current US Armed Forces budget, meanwhile, stands at £563bn

I informed @patrickharvie MSP, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, a few hours ago about my story. He told me: “This is particularly concerning at a time when the airport is becoming embroiled in a corruption allegation against the far right US president. In light of these ...

"... staggering allegations that the Scottish Government is giving freebies to the US military, ministers must urgently explain how on earth they have allowed this to happen." @patrickharvie adds that Prestwick's US military business should be suspended immediately.

The story is not just about value for money for Scottish taxpayers & stewardship of public money. It goes all the way to the House Oversight and Reform Committee in the US Congress, which is investigating US military spending at Prestwick & @realDonaldTrump’s Turnberry resort.

These allegations draw a connecting line between Prestwick's efforts to encourage more US military aircraft to the airport, using public money, and the recorded upsurge in USAF layover crews staying at Turnberry. In short, the US president also stands to benefit.

The US Defence Dept has referred requests by the House committee for communications with Prestwick and Turnberry to the White House. The Congressional investigation is ongoing, and its scope, as reported by @Politico in recent days, is expanding.

Several sources with knowledge of Prestwick’s in-house fixed base operations (FBO) business told the alleged waiving of the service fees has been taking place since around 2016 to 2017 with the full knowledge of the airport's senior management.

Fundamentally, this issue & these allegations are tied to the airport’s lucrative refuelling deal with the Defence Logistics Agency, a Virginia-based unit of the US DoD. I first wrote about the extent of the £ in June after analysing procurement records: scotsman.com/news/politics/…

Then, last month, I learned a new, even more lucrative deal between Prestwick and the DLA had been "kicked into the long grass." The DLA said the postponement was unrelated to the Congressional investigation. My sources tell me otherwise: scotsman.com/news/us-milita…

But I’ve been looking into the Prestwick / Turnberry / military triangle. I found out Trump’s resort was the *only* hotel named in pamphlets handed out by Prestwick at private meetings with USAF, despite the fact it’s one of 13 hotels it uses for aircrews: scotsman.com/news/world/tru…

Soon after that story ran, I discovered Prestwick Airport was editing its website to remove references to Trump Turnberry - in particular a section targeted at military FBO customers: scotsman.com/news/prestwick…

I’ve been biting away at this new story for weeks since @NatashaBertrand’s great USAF scoop. Over the past 19 days, I've repeatedly asked the airport how long these alleged fee waivers have been in place, how it's value for money & if other customers get similar alleged waivers.

The airport has repeatedly refused to answer any of these Qs and others. In fact, it stopped responding to my enquiries on 17 Sept. I’ve sent five emails since. None have received a reply. Is that the kind of accountability and transparency befitting a publicly owned asset?

I’ve also repeatedly asked @transcotland, the @ScotGov executive agency, whether it or the government were aware of these allegations, it responded to me, but the answer doesn't address that fairly fundamental Q.

Ditto the US Embassy in London, which responded, but failed to address a simple Q of whether it was aware of the allegations. This is after my enquiry was kicked from the USAF to the DoD, back to the USAF, on to the Dept of Transportation, then the State Dept & *then* the embassy

But what of another Q - what exactly *does* the US Defence Dept pay for at Prestwick? Interestingly, the UK Ministry of Defence picks up the tab for other US military aircraft costs, known as navigation, landing, and parking fees. These can run into thousands of £ per flight.

It’s part of a deal so historic & obscure the MoD couldn’t specifically reference it for me. There’s no suggestion of impropriety or illegality. The MoD has a longstanding, reciprocal agreement with US DoD which sees it pick up the fees for US military traffic in UK & vice versa.

How this arrangement represents value for money is impossible to determine without a paper trail and military air traffic stats to crunch. It depends largely on the flow of military aircraft b/w the US and the UK. My hunch is that it's weighted one way, and not in UK's favour.

So this arrangement, taken in tandem with the allegations about the airport waiving service fees, forms a fairly simple transactional picture: “Scottish taxpayers are picking up the tab for the largest and wealthiest military force on the planet,” a well-placed source told me.

There is considerably more to come from me on this story, but not tonight. If you have tips or info, my DMs are open, and you can email [e-mail] in confidence. Thanks for reading, and thanks to those who've given me a crash course in military aviation. ✈️✈️✈️