East Midlands Airport Anmeldelser 5.273

The airport has taken an entirely cynical approach to car parking particularly the process of dropping off passengers at departures.

Where previously your were obliged to pay the extortionate £5 charge for a two minute drop off you are now allowed to leave the car park with a small number of signs informing you that if you do not pay the charge online within 24 hours a PCN notice will be served.

This is cynical in the extreme and exploiting people with busy lives and those with no digital footprint

EMA is by far the best local airport.
My Mum who is in her 80ies and on a walker. The Assistance team are second to none helpful, friendly and reassuring and take their responsibilities seriously.
The meet and greet service again is brilliant close to the departure building the staff are pleasant and upon returning in the early hours our car was parked close for disabled and ease of departing. Well worth it.
The airport lounge and staff are also a lovely oasis prior to flying.

All in all a great experience and we will be back!

My grandson who is not 3 yet still drinks alot of milk, this relaxes him and helps him sleep. The staff at security threw all his milk away because they said he was over 2 ( he is 2yr 10 month). We had to buy semi skimmed in the airport ( they had no full fat milk). My grandson knew the difference and screamed his head off on the flight. Apologises to anyone near us flying to Lanzarote on 23rd April 2026 but blaim that stupid security woman. How ridiculous ????.

Rapid drop off is an absolute scam there was no where too pay and barriers were syull there in October I seen nothing about paying online which ive read from previous complaints and now have too pay 170 !

Used the rapid drop off at East Midlands twice over the Easter weekend. They don’t allow you to actually pay on site, but you need to leave (via barrierless exit), allow your car to be registered arriving and departing and then pay before online or by phone by midnight the following day.

They know damn well that people will forget.. and yes I was one of them. Dropped family off on 3rd April and remembered to pay later that night (£5). Picked them up on the 7th April, and annoyingly forgot to pay until a couple of days later … when it was too late (went online, but no option to pay for anything other than that day, or the day before) … and before I knew it, a £60 parking fine popped through the letterbox … for 7 minutes of parking.

Why not give the option to pay when leaving? Oh, that’s right, it won’t generate all the additional revenue via its horrific parking fines. Would love to know how much additional revenue EMA are generating from their new payment system via APCOA.

Will happily never visit that airport again.

If you are trying to contact East Midland Airport by phone, it is virtually impossible to speak to anybody. The system takes you round and round in circles either referring you to their Website then if you then continue as you have tried the Website with no luck it eventually sends you round and round again then cuts you off. I have booked a parking space and when going to the confirmation email and click on find my booking it states "Sorry we either couldn't find your booking or your booking cannot be managed on this site". I have eventually got through and now been told that if it was booked over the phone (Blue Badge) it will not recognise the booking on line, you have to call again to change anything!!!!!!

Arrived by train. Shuttle Metro OK, but obviously too small / short now. Like most airports is more or less a building site, which brings trouble e.g. temporary toilets. But overall OK

Fabulous airport, staff are wonderful, as a disabled passenger: their assistance is second to none! Takes a lot of the stress out of travelling.

A legalised scam. I only wish I could score it less than 0. Go to pick someone up and you are forced into lanes against your will. You park for less than five minutes and because of poor signage you don't know that the payment system has changed. There is no clarity that you have to pay, how or where you pay (online) and then the cost of not knowing that you have to pay by midnight is £60 minimum. There is no incentive for them improving this system

Meet & Greet Car Parking - a good idea - NOT! Wasn’t cheap for sure but seemed like a convenient choice! Bad call…my car was damaged during it’s stay…and they just don’t want to know!!

Having to request scans/cctv footage myself from 3rd party companies and handle through my own insurance company!!! Unhelpful to the ‘nth?’

Haven’t used this airport in a good while - will never use again!

Disappointing duty free for experience - I know East Midlands is a small airport but the shopping experience is really naff. There used to be some lovely duty shops including Boots but they have all disappeared. All you have is Accessorize, J D Sports and W H smiths along with the normal duty free perfume and tobacco/alcohol ….. quite a few eateries - altogether a very disappointing experience considering that the airport have spent millions upgrading the facilities!

a member of staff didnt refurn a email nor did HR

Drop off parking is a total money making scam. Do not use this rip off airport and certainly don’t use rapid drop off. It should be renamed as rapid rip off.

We flew out on 22nd January & parked in mid stay 1 as it’s quite near Departures. We bought super glide 8 wheel suitcases to make life easier as I am walking disabled & my husband & I had a large case & a cabin sized case each. We found mid stay 1 easy enough but the surface had lumps of loose gravel but nothing prepared us for the path to departures which had rough & uneven tarmac like the top coat had been skinned off! A 5 minute walk took us 15 mins in the pouring rain trying to half lift & half drag our cases over a totally unfit for purpose surface causing great distress & severe painful stress on my joints ! The new cases wheels have taken a battering & we’re almost ripped off trying to roll then again not acceptable! My poor hubby had to keep lifting his cases & coming back to mine to help lift them! Surely the Airport has a “ duty of care” to rectify this path? Totally unacceptable & I have emailed in a formal complaint twice with photos twice & I am being fobbed off unceremoniously! Disgusting & perhaps worth a chat with the local newspapers

Arrived to find that despite being told car rentals were based at the terminal and had a shuttle bus, They’re not close; they’re several hundred yards away, and the shuttle bus doesn’t run from January to April. I had to leave my disabled wife at the terminal while I slowly walked to collect the car. After the car collection, I drove back and stopped briefly beside the terminal on the service road to pick her up, then drove on. Upon the return of the car, I followed the signs for rental car return, and again had nowhere to drop her near the terminal, so I pulled in for 1 min to let her out at bus stop near the terminal (no buses coming of course), then drove on to return the car. - I was of course fined both times for stopping briefly. I have since read about the rapid drop-off area, which surely should be free of charge for anyone dropping a passenger (especially disabled), from a rental car based at that same airport, ESPECIALLY when the airport has chosen not to run the shuttle bus for three months. - This is a scam. The fact that had I used the rapid drop off I would also have to remember a rental cars number plate to be able to pay online within a day after I got home, is also unrealistic - it isn't my car, and my online receipt from the rental agency doesn't have its registration number (which is required to pay the rapid drop off fee). Awful, Awful, Awful, and should be investigated under the consumer protection act, as well as looking at their treatment of disabled people using their facilities.

We would like to say a big “Thank You” to the Green Watch at the Meet and Greet parking. The team were veryhelpful and kind in a difficult situation. Your employers should be proud to have you all on their team.
Sally and Ray White

Booked parking through Ryanair only to find it can't be cancelled even 4 weeks in advance, despite it being able to be cancelled up to 72 hours in advance if booked elsewhere. This feels incredibly unfair!

What a shambles!

We travelled on a 5.15 flight from the airport in January to Malaga,
The door to the security and check in was closed until 2 hours prior to our flight meaning that we couldn’t access anywhere other than the SHED of a check in area and get warm until then.
Upon collection from the airport we were picked up by a relative who used the rapid drop off collection lane.
On exit the barrier was up and so it was assumed that there was no charge for the 10 minutes parking fee.
The relative has now received a parking a fine for parking contravention for £50.00 which we will contest.
The whole airport is a glorified shed.

Road signage to and from the airport is terrible. I nearly always end up in the Services area on the way to the passenger terminal and end up taking the wrong exit on leaving the airport e.g. M1 South instead of M1 North. Poor lighting all around the site, confusing signage which is not large enough to see in bad weather.
Airport itself is however very good with great facilities - pity about getting to it.

Arrived on Friday and all buses from airport to car rental center do NOT run during off peak months. I was told it's a 20 minute walk which may be ok for young people but when your wife is disabled and you also have issues walking. Not very good from a disability viewpoint fortunately we managed to get a lift to the car rental center and on the way back today had to get an Uber costing £8.
Have to say this is not good enough from East Midlands airport, they need to have at least a shuttle bus or make people aware before booking a flight or car hire at the airport