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Glasgow Prestwick Airport (SC135362) has been owned by the Scottish Government since 2013, when it was bought from Infratil for a nominal £1 after Infratil sought to close it. The Scottish Government ran a market-testing exercise in 2025 and, per Kate Forbes's earlier September 2025 letter to the same committee, entered a period of exclusivity with a preferred bidder offering "a strong track record in investing in infrastructure and experience in the aviation industry."
Because the airport sits in a sector captured by the UK's National Security and Investment Act 2021 mandatory-notification schedules (aviation / critical-infrastructure adjacency, plus Prestwick's history as a licensed site with historic USAF/military logistics use and its role as an aerospace maintenance and freight hub), the proposed acquisition required mandatory pre-completion notification to the Cabinet Office's Investment Security Unit. Forbes's 26 November 2025 letter states this notification took place but that she "cannot comment on the national security process which is a reserved matter" — i.e., the substantive screening decision sits entirely with the UK Government, not Holyrood.
The letter itself is carefully worded: it discloses that the deal was subject to NSI Act notification and, separately, that the preferred bidder withdrew — without explicitly stating the withdrawal was caused by the national-security review. Media reporting closes that gap, identifying the bidder as Limak Holding (a Turkish conglomerate spanning construction, energy, cement, tourism and airport operations, including a stake history at Istanbul Airport) and attributing the collapse directly to a UK national-security investigation opened by Westminster officials. The Scottish Government has not disclosed the bidder's identity itself, citing an NDA standard to commercial sale processes of this kind.
Unlike a policy-perimeter change (e.g. the March 2026 NARs schedule reform, filed at severity 3), this is a specific, named cross-border transaction that was actually killed by the NSI Act process — the deal had reached "robust commercial deal" stage before collapsing. It demonstrates the NSI Act's teeth against non-Five-Eyes, non-EU capital (Turkey, a NATO ally but outside the UK's closest investment-screening exemption circles) acquiring UK aviation/critical infrastructure. severity_basis: qual because neither the Scottish Government nor UK Government has disclosed the deal's monetary value.
infrastructure** now carries a visible precedent of NSI Act rejection risk, independent of formal EU/Five-Eyes-adjacent status.
indefinitely — the second failed disposal attempt since 2013 (the first being an earlier unsuccessful sale process). No further divestment process has been announced.
2026-03-12-uk-nsi-act-nars-reform, which is about to formally add a standalone Water schedule and tighten AI/critical-minerals/semiconductor perimeters) that the UK's investment-screening regime is being applied robustly to critical transport/logistics infrastructure, not just semiconductors and defence.
supporting cluster) avoids a change-of-control event; the airport's strengthening commercial performance (operating profit up ~£300k in FY2025) reduces near-term pressure for the Scottish Government to re-attempt a sale.
infrastructure risk, historic military-logistics function, or generic foreign-ownership-of-critical-infrastructure policy) has not been disclosed by either government.
Scottish Government statement, or remains attributed only via unnamed media sourcing.
NSI Act s.26, or whether the bidder withdrew pre-emptively before a final order was reached (the Scottish Government letter is silent on this distinction).
retain Prestwick in public ownership on a permanent basis.