East Midlands Airport continued to punch above its weight last year – with more to come
By Steve Griffiths, East Midlands Airport Managing Director
I am forever impressed with the way that East Midlands Airport, through our brilliant and dedicated teams, continuously punches way above its weight as a regional airport.
We are a comparatively small airport but we have a big heart – with our warm welcome and effortless experience bringing people back time and again. In 2025, four million people chose us as the gateway to their holidays across Europe and north Africa, similar to the year before. This Easter more than 170,000 people flew through East Midlands Airport, an 8% increase on last Easter and an encouraging indication of a strong summer ahead.
And we overwhelmingly keep our customers satisfied, with scores of 60.4 from our satisfaction survey, around double our target and 22.6% up since I took up post as Managing Director four years ago. In fact an amazing 97% of customers rated their experience good, very good or excellent last year and 71% say they would recommend us to friends and family.
But we still always strive to improve. As well as actively exploring destination expansion opportunities, we have carried out a huge number of targeted improvements to enhance the customer experience, reaching halfway through our five-year £120m investment programme. Everywhere you look, things have changed and improved over the last 12 months ready for this year’s summer season.
Outside the terminal we have introduced a new barrierless, cashless payment system for more efficient Rapid Drop Off arrangements, along with refreshed signage and resurfacing of the Short Stay 1 car park. Meet & Greet customers now benefit from automated self-serve options and a clearer colour-coded layout for vehicle collection.
Once in the terminal, customers are greeted with a new-look security hall complete with next-generation scanners, making the process more pleasant and smooth – with 99.8% of customers already clearing security in under 15 minutes. All new for 2026, in the departure lounge we have a new Italian restaurant Terracotta, WHSmith one-stop shop, Little Flyers interactive play zone, a new Quiet Room and a first ever Sensory Pod.
Beyond this there’s our extended, refurbished Escape Lounge, extra seating, better wi-fi, new water refill stations, electronic customer service kiosks, a new airside multi faith room and refurbished toilet facilities throughout the terminal, plus other new retail outlets and eateries completed earlier. And on return from their holidays, customers have an improved welcome in our refreshed immigration hall.
As well as a big heart we have big ambitions, building on our position as the UK’s number one express air cargo hub. Across the 2025/26 financial year, we topped 400,000 tonnes of cargo for the first time since the pandemic, during which we played a vital role in keeping international trade moving. The 413,664 tonnes carried last year was 46,037 tonnes more than the previous year, a 12.5% increase.
That increase represents more than a third (37%) of all air freight growth in the UK, which for an airport our size is nothing short of astounding. It underlines our strength in specialising in dedicated freighter aircraft, when most airports carry cargo on passenger planes.
Our 24/7 operation which isn’t at the mercy of passenger flight schedules, along with our strategic central location giving access to 85% of the UK population within four hours, has helped to see seven new airlines starting to use East Midlands as their gateway to the UK market last year.
Looking ahead, we have earmarked four plots on our airfield totalling 50 hectares for new cargo developments, which could help meet an estimated 54% growth in demand within the next two decades. This could boost regional GVA by £1.8bn and support up to 21,000 new jobs. We have carried out works to unlock more capacity for cargo operations and are seeing investments by third parties in facilities in and around the airport. Proposals we have put forward with our development partner Prologis for advanced manufacturing and logistics facilities on our Freeport land south of the airport are awaiting planning consideration.
All of which means that while we already play a significant role in the regional and wider UK economy, we have even more to give in the future. Exciting times ahead!