East Midlands Airport

Having read a lot of the previous reviews my expectations of EMA were quite low I need not have worried though. Return flight from Belfast was a breeze landed ahead of schedule and was straight through customs with no queues similar experience the other way. Very clean and tidy well sign posted and catering facilities were impressive the Skyline bus to Derby was only £8 return Bristol Airport take note! Oddly enough this airport looks pretty grim from the outside but the inside is perfectly fine will use again in the future.

I live 10 minutes from EMA and would only use it for that reason. Today we were made to walk from the aircraft to the immigration in the pouring rain no buses (they seem to have done away with them) and not even a covered walkway. The poor folks at the back of the (long) immigration queue were stood outside! We were soaked but at least inside. None of the passport scanners were working why bother with them? It seems the building work is going on forever. It should be demolished and rebuilt to make it a decent facility because as it stands it is not fit for purpose. The charge for "drop off" just smacks of desperation the drop is so rammed with cars and people it doesn't work anyway. Unfortunately I doubt if any of the rebuilding will make any difference. We shall see.

Maybe all the people posting reviews about security staff at EMA should just stop think and take stock of why staff might get a little disgruntled and why queues can be so long. If passengers arrived consistently early as advised followed the instructions about liquids emptied their pockets properly and basically followed the rules (all of which are well publicised) then the process would be much simpler and easier for all. And next time you are waiting in the queue just think its all for your safety. Outbound security is there to identify possible threats to the airport and your flight. Would you rather they skipped through things. If they are taking time to scrutinise an x-ray then its because there is something they are not sure about. I have travelled through EMA and other airports and EMA are very good and friendly. No problems if you treat the staff with the same respect you would expect from them.

We were unfortunate enough to pass through East Midlands airport in September 2014. We arrived at the airport at around 5.40am to find queues virtually out of the terminal. We quickly realised people were queuing to scan their boarding passes. It took us a good 20 mins to get to the point of scanning ours. They wouldn't scan there was one member of staff stood at the express lane (why should people pay for the process to be efficient anyway) he really didn't want to help. He eventually let us through the gate for us to be herded into the customs lane. We really felt like cattle being herded. All the customs queues merged so people were pushing in it was horrible and absolute chaos. It took us another at least 15 mins to get through this queue. We then had to beg another member of staff to let us through express or we wouldn't have made our flight. We were then told that we had to take our hairdryer and straighteners out of our hand luggage and that our liquids bag wasn't good enough. It's was farcical and very upsetting. We managed to run for our plane and get there just on time. Whoever is in charge of running this airport should be ashamed and get some lessons in customer service. I will never travel from this airport again even if it means costing me more. Sort it out east mids and train your staff to be more helpful!

Never used EMA before and approached with an open mind. First impressions not great - automated number plate recognition for per booked parking not working (no signs) and long stay car park a long way from terminal with no bus service and very poor surfaces making it tricky to push trolley. At one point during trek to Departures our cases fell from the trolley leaving my wife and kids temporally stranded on the zebra crossing - not really EMA's fault but was amazed as an airport Security car drove straight across crossing (steering around my young children) before we could recover. From this point things didn't get any better. Expensive food in departure lounge - served cold used chewing gum stuck to barriers dirty toilets. Could things get any worse for our return? Yes! We arrived back in the UK at around midnight to be confronted with a queue that extended some distance from the Security/immigration building. Here we stood with two freezing children for an hour and a half - much of the time without cover as it started to drizzle. No explanation or apology provided other than a rude and condescending response that "Immigration are not quick enough" when somebody within the queue had the audacity to ask why we were being asked to stand outside. Upon our eventual arrival to the baggage area our flight had been removed from the displays making it difficult to identify the correct conveyor belt. Upon locating bags (fortunately not ours) had fallen from the conveyor belt and were left to roll across airport floor. I've never even considered reviewing an airport before. As a relatively frequent traveller I've learned to accept the inevitable Security scrutiny and without exception (until now) found airport around the world to be operated efficiently and courteously. But the was not my experience with EMA and unless unavoidable I won't be returning.

If you knew when the peak hours were and could avoid them I'm sure that as some reviewers have said this airport would be nice and easy to 'walk through'. Between 4.45am and 7am in the morning however it is an absolute nightmare. Drop off point ridiculously congested checking in area a mess. Despite managing to check in with Ryanair well before the desks closed going through security was horrendous. Queued for an hour and a half to get through to security just in time to be denied entrance to the airplane along with about 20 others. There then followed another hour and a half in a queue at the service desk just to get transfers. Well done East Midlands and the security measures. Whilst I can appreciate we don't want any security issues the lack of information or assistance only added to the stress. I hope you enjoy your refit as we for one don't ever want to visit again. Life is too short. As the 'Recommend' button only has the option of Yes or No not 'Are you kidding?' then I will just have to put 'No'.

After reading the reviews on the internet whilst stuck in traffic I was panicking that we would get our flight. We eventually arrived at the airport parked in jet parks and the whole airport experience was great we sailed through check in no queues in security and staff were pleasant the airport seems to be having some work done at the moment but we managed to eat get magazines and the flight even left early I had no problems once we got to the airport.

The facilities here for collecting friends or colleagues upon arrival are a nightmare. You have a choice upon arrival of short stay or 10 minutes drop off. Threatening notices about £100 fines if you outstay your 10 minutes and no facility to pay with notes. You do have a choice of paying by card with a 150% surcharge of £1.50. I thought merchant costs were meant to be about 4% tops.

Truly the worst UK airport horrendous queues rude staff complete lack of customer service - how to ruin your business trip or holiday - 100s of people made to stand in a queue for an hour without being able to go to the toilet and rude staff claiming we are understaffed there is no one to deal with it! I dread using It and it is always as bad if not worse than the previous visit about time something was done about the check in and 50 minute queue for security. Sort it out East Midlands.

As we live only 10 minutes away East Midlands Airport has always been our first choice for short haul flights. However it is getting beyond a joke and our experience flying to and from Berlin last weekend has made me reluctant to use East Midlands in the future. The queues at check-in (albeit Ryanair) at 5.30 on Friday morning were huge the staff were rude and did not give any explanation of what the delay was about. Once though into departures there were no seats available and all retail outlets were very overcrowded - it was a 15 minute wait to get a cup of coffee. On our return late on Monday evening we had to queue for over 40 minutes to get through passport control and the bags were on a completely different carousel from that indicated on the TV screens. Finally we were told that the wait for our pre-booked taxi would be 30 minutes. Happily after I went into meltdown mode Arrow Cars managed to get us a cab within 15 minutes. The airport clearly cannot cope with the number of flights that is has contracted for and needs to take some action without delay or there will be a mass move to Birmingham.