Latest statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority shine a light on East Midlands Airport’s customers, including their eating preferences at the airport and their top spots for holidays.
The conclusion is that typical East Midlands Airport customers are a couple aged over 45 living less than an hour away who drive to the airport, eat a pub or bar meal and fly to Spain or a Spanish island on holiday.
The CAA survey from 2025 shows that the airport’s customers are a 50/50 split of males and females – with the largest group size of two, at 55%, indicating lots of couples travelling together choose East Midlands for an effortless start to their holiday.
The largest age group, at more than a third of the total (37%), are between 45 and 64 years old. Those aged 65 and over make up 27% while 22% are 25 to 44-year-olds. Three quarters live between half an hour to an hour away, with two-thirds (67%) from the East Midlands. The vast majority (66.2%) drive, around a quarter (23.3%) travel by taxi and 9.4% take the bus or a coach.
Just above three-quarters of the flights are for leisure, with just 2% business travel and 20% visiting family and friends – Ireland, Spain and Poland being the top non-UK residencies at 28%, 24% and 19% respectively, and non-UK residences making up just 7% of the total customer base.
Just over half of the airport’s customers (52%) are flying to Spain and Spanish islands, with 14 Spanish destinations to choose from. As well as the popular spots on mainland Spain of Alicante, Malaga, Barcelona, Girona Costa-Brava, Murcia, Reus, and Valencia, other firm favourites with East Midlands customers are the Canary Islands of Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria, along with the Balearic islands of Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza.
The next most popular holiday spot, attracting 10% of customers, is Greece and its islands, with flights to Preveza and Salonika as well as the islands of Rhodes, Corfu, Crete, Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Skiathos.
Before they head off on their holidays, a quarter of customers (25%) choose a pub or bar meal while at East Midlands Airport, with the recently refurbished Castle Rock Bar & Kitchen the main outlet, along with Alembic which opened last year. The survey was carried out before the opening of new Italian restaurant Terracotta this Easter, and showed 12% of customers chose restaurants for their pre-flight meal, with 20% opting for meal deal – with these now available from the newly-opened WHSmith one-stop shop. A further 12% brought their own food, while 11% opted for fast food at Burger King.
East Midlands Airport’s Customer Services and Planning Director, Mike Grimes, said: “We know our customers really well at the airport and make sure we provide the routes and the service they expect.
“However, we’re also always looking to exceed those expectations and this includes recent investment which gives them fresh options for where to get their pre-flight meals and new facilities such as an expanded, refurbished Escape Lounge, kids’ play zone and a quiet room and sensory pod as an extension of our award-winning assisted travel service.
“We are also working hard to expand our route network to offer even more destination choices, as well as to grow the number of customers coming from outside the region which this survey shows is 33% of the total. We will be shouting louder and further about why more people should choose East Midlands Airport if they want an effortless start to their holidays.”
