About the Airport
Nestled in the heart of England lies East Midlands Airport. The 11th busiest airport in Great Britain, its 2893m of runways served 4.5 million flyers last year. Like many UK airports, East Midlands started life as an RAF Base which was decommissioned in 1946 at the end of World War II. For almost twenty years after, the land lay abandoned, no longer needed by a Britain that had not quite accustomed to the heady world of commercial flight. That, however, was due to change in the 60s.
Almost twenty years later, a group of local authorities pooled their resources to purchase the land and one year later, in 1965, the airport opened to commercial and business flights. Although East Midlands does major business in terms of commercial flights, it is also the UK’s second largest cargo airport outside of London Heathrow with 300,000 tonnes flying through the runways in 2012. The most popular destination for holiday makers in 2014 were Spanish destinations, with planes to Alicante, Mallorca and Málaga whisking away over a million sun hungry Brits.
In terms of access, the East Midlands Airport is handily placed in a 20 miles radius to many large, populated towns and cities. Both the M1, M42 and A50 run around the airport giving it ideal transport links to the rest of the country. Looking forward to the future, the proposed route for the High Speed 2 rail line (running from London Euston to Leeds) could bring a dedicated station to East Midlands Airport, bringing in a new age of potential flyers.