East Midlands Airport

Massive problems at drop off, high charges to do so, machines not working causing long tail backs. Long queues for passport control on return many people including mothers with young children waiting outside in the rain. Only two people on passport control. This is a rip off airport with little interest in passenger comfort.

I used to like this airport and would often highly recommend it but recently all you get is queues, queues, queues. The system must generally know how many passengers are coming and going, therefore it shouldn't be difficult to plan ahead. Plus the new drop off parking charge is difficult to control the ten minute limit at busy times if you are stuck in more queues.

Travelling with my grandchildren from East Midlands Airport. The 9-year old, had a toy bow with suction tipped arrows - a flimsy affair. The airport was extremely quiet, in fact we were the only ones passing through security at the time. There were probably 5 or 6 staff there standing around. They decided the toy bow was an offensive weapon and confiscated it from the child, I pointed out that if we removed the string from the bow we would have a piece of wood. Off went the staff to his unseen supervisor who ruled that even if the string was removed it was still a dangerous weapon. What kind of competency has a security supervisor who cannot distinguish between a child's toy and an offensive weapon?

Landed 20 minutes ahead of schedule at 23.30 from Tenerife South after an issue-free flight with Jet2. However, once landed all passengers were crammed onto two buses and we were left waiting with the doors open, exposed to the freezing cold and the rain for 10+ minutes. This only got worse as we were ferried over by a bus driver stopping and starting causing people to almost fall over on the bus. East Midlands Airport apparently cannot cope with two flights arriving at similar times, as there were 300+ people queuing out of the arrival terminal onto the runway at 00.30 in the freezing cold and rain. We were absolutely disgusted that airport staff did not recognise or move a mother with a newborn out of the cold into the terminal. Children and the elderly were left outside queuing for over half an hour, I have never witnessed such disorganisation at an airport in my life. Once actually inside things only got worse, as the queues went on and it took a police officer to move the mother with a newborn ahead of the ridiculous queues. The self-serve passport lanes caused more trouble than they were worth, as people were having issues using them and being moved to the manual check queue anyway. I would purposefully go out of my way and spend extra money to avoid this despicable place in the future. Staff rude and insensitive, nobody in the terminal available to help or lend a hand and understaffed throughout. Also, the airport looks tatty and tired - it clearly cannot cope with the volume of passengers passing through yet continues to operate in the same way. Honestly, I cannot convey just how bad this airport is. Goodness knows what it is like at prime times as EMA cannot cope at 01.00. Ruined the end of our holiday and left a bad lasting impression - avoid at all costs.

After a wonderful flight with Thomas Cook Airlines the greeting at passport control was approx 300 people queing to get back into the country - total chaos. Getting used to the latest technology was taking longer than the old system. Disgraceful. Then when we got to the conveyor for our cases they all mixed up on different flight conveyors. My case was on the flight from Majorca, my partners was from Tenerife conveyer and we flew from Paphos. I had a taxi waiting for over 1.30 hrs outside the airport which cost me £20 extra. East Midlands airport should get their act together.

High parking charges, staff unhelpful, security staff rude, thought Gatwick was bad but take it all back. Departure process very poor, unable to deal with busy periods. If using Thomson premier class you cannot access the quick check in desk as it is blocked by passengers queuing for economy class.

Parking charges at East Midlands airport have to be seen to be believed, £45 for 3 days. What a rip off. When my husband came to pick me up you only get 10 minutes for £2 and then £1 a minute after that. My advice if you do have to use the airport - if you are being picked up walk to the petrol station to meet your lift or, as we will do next time, look at a taxi transfer. We had booked the cheapest short stay parking but the car park was so full we had to go in meet and greet. If we had wanted that we would have paid for it and did not anticipate somebody else driving our car. Train to Manchester airport next time. The queue to get food was horrendous, insufficient staff there were empty tables but nobody to serve you so we went for a sandwich instead and a lot were unavailable.

Having checked in on-line we arrived in plenty of time (we thought) to simply drop our one bag off and go through to security. We had to queue to get into the Ryanair hall and was confronted by a huge slow moving queue. After 20 minutes we were called out of the queue for the Corfu flight. Stood in front of the check-in desk, the system went down and we had to move position - all just to get rid of one case. We then joined the security queue - utter nightmare. People everywhere going nowhere. Finally after 40 mins we arrived at the front of the queue. My wife has had two new knees and open heart heart surgery so she makes their machine 'ping'. She queued to go through their security X-ray pod and then was examined by a polite lady who kept apologizing but still spent 10 minutes before my wife was free to go onwards to Gate 11. When we finally got there the gate was shut and Ryanair had taken our case off the aircraft. The initial culprit is Ryanair but the major blames rests with EMA and their awful security. If I can possibly avoid EMA in the future I will.

Landed late evening and only one bus to collect everyone off the plane. We had to wait 40 minutes to get into the terminal from landing. Then queued outside for ten minutes in the rain then queued inside only to find automatic scanners not working properly my advice is don't bother with this tinpot airport go to Birmingham and get a better service

Dreadful. Queues to get through security were backed right up through the check in hall. I was in the queue for at least 45 minutes having left what I thought was plenty of time to make my flight. No air conditioning on a very hot day - there is clearly air conditioning in the building but it's not switched on. There are 6 security points but only 3 are manned - ridiculous. I ended up having to ask to go through the priority lane (although there were a distinct lack of staff to ask) as my flight was due to start boarding. A horrendous experience. I regularly travel from Glasgow airport where there are always plenty of staff and security areas open and never wait for more than 15 minutes to get through security. I can't comment on shops or food as there was no time to use them. Surely these business are losing money if people don't have time to use them?