Busiest summer at East Midlands Airport since 2008

Over 3.2 million passengers flew to the airport during May to October which is on a par with 3.3 million passengers for the same period in 2008.

Popular destinations holiday makers have flown to this summer include:

• - Amsterdam
• - the Balearic Islands
• - Cancun (Mexico)
• - Dublin
• - The Canaries
• - The Greek Islands and mainland Greece
• - Italy
• - Orlando (US)
• - Spain
• - Portugal

Andy Cliffe, East Midlands Airport’s Managing Director, says: “This has been a great summer season and I’m delighted that, after a dip in passenger numbers between 2009 and 2012 following the global financial crash, we have seen a steady period of growth since. We look forward to building on this over the winter months to ensure that this is one of our busiest years overall. The increase in our passenger numbers is not only a great boost to our business, but combined with our status as the UK’s no.1 pure freight cargo airport, it’s having a significant impact on the regional economy.”

East Midlands Airport’s vision is to double passenger numbers to 10 million and triple the amount of cargo it handles to 1 million tonnes a year. This growth, alongside other developments on land adjacent to the airport site, will generate thousands of new additional jobs for local people.

In response to the growing demand from passengers the airport has invested significantly in its infrastructure to improve the customer experience. This includes:

• increasing capacity at both its security facility and immigration halls
• opening a brand new Starbucks in the departures lounge
• increasing car parking capacity
• relocating and improving car hire facilities making them easier to reach from the internal bus network
• launching a new menu and bringing catering in-house at the Escape Lounge
• widening its product range in duty-free.

Andy continues: “Not only is our operation growing but the experience that passengers are having is improving too. Our complaints are 50% down on last year and 60% of customers rate their experience with us as a 9 or 10 out of 10. We are aware we need to do more and we continue to improve our facilities to ensure that we are the first choice airport for people living in this region.”