97% of East Midlands Airport customers rate it good to excellent
East Midlands Airport continues to earn its reputation as one of the UK’s favourite airports, with 97% of its customers rating their experience good, very good or excellent last year.
And 71% say they would recommend the airport to friends and family, with the ease of getting to and through the airport, staff courtesy, ease of getting on and off aircraft and through security and immigration among the airport’s key qualities.
The ringing endorsement follows investments in arrivals, departures and security – where customer satisfaction rose by between 2% and 3% to 86%, 86% and 90% respectively compared to the previous year.
Arrivals has seen aesthetic improvements in the immigration hall, clearer wayfinding, a new Lost Property hub along with refurbished toilets and Changing Places toilet facility in the baggage reclaim hall. Changes in the departure lounge include a new quiet room, sensory pod and children’s play zone, new seating, new and refurbished restaurants, better shopping facilities and refurbished toilets. Meanwhile the security hall has undergone a complete transformation including next generation scanners to speed up the process - helping 99.7% of customers complete pre-flight checks in under 15 minutes.
Landside operations including the airport’s popular Meet & Greet parking service also contributed strongly to the overall scores, with customers citing staff courtesy among the reasons. Improvements have also been introduced here, with self-serve options for dropping off and collecting vehicle keys allowing customers to skip queues and adding to EMA’s effortless promise.
Customers also experience few delays, with a 90.4% ‘On Time Performance’ score for departures in the busiest early morning wave. Recent national data shows that flights at East Midlands last year experienced the fourth lowest total delays across all UK airports, at an average of 11 minutes 48 seconds.
The airport’s Customer Services and Planning Director, Mike Grimes, said: “These fantastic scores show just how strongly our customers value the effortless experience we provide when they travel through East Midlands Airport. By all measures we have improved on the previous year and are consistently performing way above our targets.
“I’m really proud of all our dedicated staff who make this happen day in day out, from first impressions landside to the final moments in the terminal, whether supporting customers face to face or working behind the scenes. I hope that friends and family listen to the 71% of our customers who recommend us and also choose East Midlands as their easy way to get away.”
Unprompted Trust Pilot reviews from June last year included:
· “East Midlands Airport has very cheerful staff, no queues, as good as an airport can be”
· “What an amazing experience at East Midlands Airport, as a single parent travelling with two small children. All the staff were super helpful and made the experience effortless”
· “Arrived 20 minutes ago at Meet and Greet, took 5 minutes to check the car in. Now sat in the bar relaxing with a beer. Well done EMA, if only all other airports were this easy!”