East Midlands Airport (EMA) is ready to welcome around 774,000 customers over the school summer holiday period, as families prepare to fly to their favourite destinations across Europe.
The busiest day so far this year on Friday July 19 is expected to see almost 20,000 people pass through the airport.
Internationally-recognised Airport Service Quality rankings earlier this year placed EMA in fifth place among 118 European airports for how people feel about their experience – and in 18th position for overall experience.
EMA serves more than 70 destinations across Europe and north Africa, mostly with Jet2, Tui and Ryanair. These offer beach holidays from Spain to Italy, Greece and its islands or popular alternatives such as Croatia and Bulgaria, as well as city breaks in European capitals from Rome, Berlin and Madrid to Budapest, Prague and Riga.
Smaller operators include Eastern Airways which launched a new route earlier this year to Paris Charles de Gaulle – offering a great way to get to this year’s summer Olympics, or connecting to hundreds of flights across the globe, bookable as one trip with Air France. Aurigny and Blue Islands offer flights to the Channel Islands, while Balkan Holidays fly to Bourgas on Bulgaria’s southern coast, and Aer Lingus can have you in Belfast in just over an hour.
Investment at EMA has already seen some key improvements in the terminal ahead of this summer, including brand new bar The Yard, a refurbished Castle Rock Bar & Kitchen, extra customer seating, a large new JD Sports shop, better customer wi-fi and newly modernised toilet facilities.
The bumper summer months follow rising passenger numbers at EMA, with more than 502,000 travelling through the airport last month – 72,000 more than June last year. The latest statistics are revealed after EMA’s owners MAG (Manchester Airports Group) published its annual results, showing record revenues of £1.2bn, a £2bn investment programme at its airports – Manchester, Stansted and EMA – and good to excellent satisfaction among 90% of passengers.
EMA’s Managing Director Steve Griffiths said: “We’re pleased that people are choosing East Midlands Airport in increasing numbers for their summer getaways. We know people come back year after year in the knowledge that their holidays will get off to a stress-free start – and we’ll be doing all we can to make sure that’s the case again for them this year.
“They’ll get a warm welcome, a quick and easy transition through security and plenty of time to enjoy the new and improved facilities in our departure lounge, before jetting off on their holidays.”
