Liquidators have been appointed to the company which ran Blackpool Airport.
Some 20 people, including creditors and staff, were at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool for a 45-minute meeting to start the formal process of placing Blackpool Airport Ltd into voluntary liquidation.
Staff signed a confidentiality clause as part of their redundancy package and were barred from speaking to the press after the meeting.
However later one former worker said: ‘This is a sad day for us, a sad day for the airport and a sad day for Blackpool.
‘It’s the end of an era. I think the airport will get back into business again some time but I don’t think it will be a big commercial operation like we have just had.
‘All the people who worked there are very upset about losing their jobs. I really loved working there and would love to go back.’
Almost 120 staff were employed at the airport, which served 235,000 passengers last year but made losses of around £1.5m a year.
Insolvency and restructuring experts Zolfo Cooper have been appointed as liquidator with Nick Cropper, Alastair Beveridge and Catherine Williamson taking charge of the process which could see assets sold off to pay creditors.
The company was originally appointed by Balfour Beatty to sell Blackpool Airport Ltd in September.
The airport shut down at 6pm on Wednesday night and is set to remain closed until 8am Saturday morning when it will open for limited general aviation flights.
The final commercial passenger flight was a Citywing flight to the Isle of Man at 5pm.
Citywing has suspended it services to Blackpool until at least next spring.
Talks are ongoing to secure the future of the site and retain an aviation presence.
Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden said: ‘Myself and fellow MPs, Paul Maynard and Mark Menzies met cities minister Greg Clarke at Westminster along with representatives of the local enterprise partnership including its leader Martin Kelly to put the case for future financial support for Blackpool airport.’