LUXE Serendipity magazine

By Steve Griffiths, Managing Director, East Midlands Airport

2025 was always going to be a significant year for East Midlands Airport, our 60^th year operating as a commercial airport, but it has risen beyond celebrating past successes.

We have certainly enjoyed marking the occasion in several ways – from various events bringing civic and business leaders, along with local communities, together, to a Red Arrow flypast, photo exhibition, upgrades to the Airport Trail, plaque unveiling, and a children’s art competition, among many others.

It has been an opportunity to reflect on what makes the airport such a special place – and of course, it’s the people. Those who work here now and those who were here for the previous six decades have all brought passion and a drive to improve the airport.

And that drive to improve has really been a hallmark of our anniversary year at the airport. We have undertaken some really significant improvements for our customers as part of our ongoing £120m investment programme, not least an expanded and transformed security hall that provides a much brighter, more welcoming environment for checks. Next-generation scanning equipment has been installed, which helps speed up the process by up to 125 people per hour. Carrying out these improvements and training security officers on the new scanners – in a newly constructed training academy – while keeping the airport running without impacting our customers is a testament to the fantastic team at East Midlands.

And that’s by no means the only change we’ve overseen. We introduced new barrierless, cashless arrangements in the rapid drop off area to improve traffic flow, opened new and refurbished restaurants, stores and an expanded and refurbished Escape Lounge, upgraded toilet facilities throughout the terminal, opened a new airside multi-faith room, revamped our Meet & Greet office and Lost Property hub…the list is almost endless. Beyond this, our popular Assisted Travel service supported 100,000 customers for the first time in one year – and won a national award. All these things have undoubtedly helped towards customer satisfaction reaching an all-time high, with 71% saying they would recommend East Midlands Airport to others – a fantastic achievement.

One major event for us was launching our cargo growth strategy, which earmarks four sites near the runway, totalling 80 football pitches, for development into new cargo facilities. This would help us facilitate the estimated 54% growth in cargo volumes we will handle in the coming two decades. Since announcing our plans, we have welcomed an incredible seven new cargo airlines to the airport.

This immediate jump in cargo activity has contributed to East Midlands becoming the UK’s fastest-growing air freight hub, with a 12% year-on-year increase in cargo tonnage. The total cargo handled so far this year is 275,883 which is almost 30,000 tonnes more than last year. Just last month we handled 36,595 tonnes of cargo – 16.6% or 5,204 more than last year. We have supported this immediate growth by reconfiguring our cargo aprons to increase the number of stands for wide-bodied aircraft.

Our cargo growth is also having a positive knock-on effect on businesses that support or rely on this part of our operation. For example, both FedEx and ground handling firm Swissport have moved into larger on-site facilities to increase their capacity – with another new warehouse scheduled to open on site soon. A new facility for the maintenance, repair and overhaul of cargo crates has opened at a nearby business park, prompted by the rising cargo volumes and sustained e-commerce expansion at the airport, according to the facility’s operators Unilode.

This winter will see further improvements out on the airfield, reconstructing one of the main taxiways, improving lighting and reconfiguring the main passenger apron to increase the number of aircraft that can park there. This ties in with efforts that are actively underway to expand our passenger route network, including a link to a European hub airport.

As if all this wasn’t enough, away from the day-to-day running of the airport, our brilliant staff have taken part in thousands of hours of volunteer work in our neighbouring communities and we’ve continued our year-round engagement with local people to listen to their concerns, support community groups and projects and showcase all that’s great about the airport including the employment opportunities here.

As the year draws to a close, we still have our eyes on the horizon, looking for opportunities to improve the airport for decades to come.