The Scottish Government is to provide an additional £10 million to a struggling airport that it bought last year for £1.
Glasgow Prestwick Airport will be loaned the cash as part of the Finance Secretary John Swinney's budget plans for next year.
The Scottish Government took the airport into public ownership last year after owners Infratil had earmarked it for closure.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a £7 million investment for repairs and improvements at Holyrood in June - but warned MSPs that it could be a long time before they see a return on the investment.
A Government spokesman confirmed that it was "investing in Glasgow Prestwick Airport to ensure that it can continue to meet all of its current financial obligations".
He stated: "Our investment will take the form of loan funding, which will attract a market rate of interest in line with state aid rules and we expect this investment to generate a long-term return for taxpayers' money.
"As was clearly stated at the start of this process, Scottish Government investment in Glasgow Prestwick Airport is being undertaken on a commercial basis and will help ensure the continuation of robust competition between airports in Scotland and will not be at the expense of it."
The spokesman added: "We are clear that any investment in Glasgow Prestwick Airport will have no impact on the Team Scotland approach and our on-going efforts to support all Scottish airports' route development aspirations.
"We are confident there is a place for Glasgow Prestwick Airport in the evolving and increasingly competitive Scottish aviation market, and are committed to making it the success we know it can be."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article