prestwick Airport

The airport is privately owned by Infratil, a New Zealand investment company which also owns Wellington International Airport and Kent International Airport at Manston Ramsgate. In April 2005, Infratil completed a major £3 million refurbishment of the terminal building, and also controversially rebranded the airport using the phrase "Pure Dead Brilliant", taken straight from the Glasgow patter. Some of this rebranding has been controversial, in particular the redecoration of the airport bar. The bar was rebranded in February 2006 with a logo depicting a man in a kilt, unconscious with an empty bottle of whisky. Despite objections that it promoted the wrong image of Scotland to foreign visitors and embarrassed local travellers, the airport management insisted the logo was "fun and visually stimulating". However, the logo was removed on March 3, 2006, a matter of weeks after its introduction, after the intervention of the South Ayrshire Licensing Board who said the logo trivialised excessive drinking. On 6 July 2005, Prestwick Airport became the entry point into Scotland for the world's most powerful leaders on the eve of the 31st G8 summit which was being held in Gleneagles. Strathclyde Police implemented an unprecedented level of security around the airport for the duration of the summit. Officers from police forces throughout the UK were drafted in to assist in the operation, including armed officers. In preparation for the landing of Air Force One, carrying then US president George W. Bush, the A77 which runs past the end of the main runway, was controversially closed while the aircraft was on final approach. Since 2007 the airport has occasionally been used by BBC motoring TV show Top Gear as the location for various stunts and experiments. The most well known of which was inspired by a scene in the movie Casino Royale and featured both a Ford Mondeo and a Citroën 2CV parked behind the engines of a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400, in an experiment to investigate if the thrust from the aircraft four jet engines really could lift a car off the ground.