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Originally Posted by JACKinBeantown
You are correct. Would you care to share your knowledge and give an informed and detailed answer that will help others with less impressive expertise than you understand the situation?
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So this is a company that needs to operate at a profit.However, their offerings are budget airline service which they have a lot of due to the low cost of their gate rental. Their business plan works because the profits they make cover the debt they took on to get the South Terminal Up and running (3mil IIRC). Now, the south terminal building was already previously used as a passenger terminal. It was briefly the home of VivaAeroBus in the 2000s. It also had its own apron and is connected to the taxiway. That meant it took relatively little amount of money to get it operational for private service which this company did. It was the perfect situation of a low margin operation that needed very little up front investment.
I'm sure not an expert on all the old shitty air force buildings (many of which are being demolished in the near year or two) but it's highly unlikely a turnkey building exists that they could be moved to. Once you start needing to spend 10s-100s of millions to relocate them into a NEW building, you start to lose the point of the dead which was to add service without adding airport debt. Also, if the only option is for the public airport paying to get a new building operational for a private company...I mean why? What would we want to do that? At that point there is no advantage to having them there at all. At best, they would just financially exploit what public money built.
Also, any new location would need to fall in the FAA approved land use master plan. That's not an easy or fast change. It's also just not worth it when you can buy out the company or evict them. It would be really funny if the state court forces the airport to accommodate though.