East Midlands Airport — Local services in North West Leicestershire

This airport is an absolute joke all they are interested in is ripping you off for all they can and make your holiday experience unhappy. Let's start at parking you book on line months before hand at extortionate prices for parking place give registration plus vehicle details turn up at designated time no parking spaces at all they are selling spots that do not exist spent three quarters off an hour to find spot after driving around several time until space became available. The airport is soo ruin down with uneven surfaces water stained ceiling tiles in terminal and toilets that do not work. Passport control and customs an absolute Joke at the end of the day they are cheesed off because you are going away on holiday and they aren't. So we're do I start you go through border control and they have signs up stating Bare with us as we are protecting you from terrorist and illegal imagrants your average holiday maker is not a terrorist and imagrants just come in on rubber dinghy and do not fly as holiday makers. I am sick on tired off being pulled to one side as I have two metal tents fitted in my heart which sets metal detectors off you are made to strip even though you show card stating metal tents fitted. All they are again interested in is drugs. officer was adamant that they were going to find drugs on me. Checking around my waste line wallet and everywhere else because slight cocaine trace was on one off my twenty pound notes. I stated only drugs I take are prescribed medication and every twenty pound note in the uk has traces off white powder on them so doesnt make me a drug dealer they were not impressed. The other thing is you constantly having to show your passport for everything you board plane do not stop off at Moor way services or pick up hitch hikers and when you arrive at your destination same process even though our government and other countries governments know who is leaving the UK what time and for how long plus same on other border control no wonder imagrants just walk into this country under false identities when they spend there time wasted on us easy prey I suppose other option catching illegal imagrants too much paperwork. The so called quick passport identity control does not work or if you are lucky 4 out off twenty working. They state that 120 million is being spent on airport on what I would love to know. I am sick and tired off being treated like a criminal when I was born in the uk white British and loved her for over sixty years. Restaurants and shops in airport absolute rip off on prices extortionate perhaps if they lowered priced instead off taking advantage they might sell more duty free the same as high street prices or Internet you have to be dislusional to believe you are...

Their "rapid" drop off is beyond a joke. Apart from the now £5 minimum charge (this is not a typo!... photos included here) to drop a passenger off at the airport they only have two exit barriers and their IT system to process payments is interminably slow (approx 90 seconds of processing time for the machine to accept payment and open the barrier). Given that they charge you £1 per minute (on top of the additional £5 minimum charge... yes, really) for any delays, they have no incentive to process payments and customers quicker. When I finally got to the exit barrier the machine did not accept my payment at first. I used the call function on the machine and their personnel said they'd need a minute "to look into the problem at this end". Again, their technical issues come at the cost of all their customers in the bottle beck of two exit lines (I was in the shorter queue, the queue beside me had a car stuck at the barrier with the customer out of their car looking for airport staff to come look at the issue they were having with the machine). I had also selected to have a receipt for my payment but none printed.

FYI, importantly, their website tells you they offer alternatives to the rapid drip off. This is, in practice, untrue. The long stay car park drop off does not have a shuttle bus running anymore (they blame Covid despite airports - including EMA - crying out for travel to resume as before). The other alternatives... (A) To pre-book a drop off or (B) to book a short stay parking space are also not possible/feasible. They have traffic cones blocking off the entrance to the pre-booked line which is clearly not operational. As they instructed, I used their website to request a price for using their short term car park as an alternative to the "rapid" drop off. The minimum stay offered was one hour and price quoted was £64 (this is not a typo). The flight I was collecting their passenger from was just after 11pm. I selected 11pm till midnight and it genuinely quoted me £64. Perhaps their system sees those time slots as 2 days because the one hour goes into midnight? I offer these details to document how they did not present me with any viable alternative to the "rapid" drop off... Which is horrendously inefficient, massively overpriced, and an anxiety inducing experience. The fact that they are aware of these issues and continue to force them upon their customers shows how little regard they have for their paying customers. This short term thinking will surely impact their returning business (which, for me at least, will not include my custom)....

Horrible place to drop off and collect from.. My daughter said it took ages to get through security and then her Ryan air plane was delayed 3.5 hours waiting for parts before swapping them last minute to another plane(just shy of the compensation threshold) !!

Go budget and it's never going to be the trip it should have been !!

Back to why this is a 1 star review... Should be a zero star... !!

The whole area for about a mile or more is a Red route £100 fine if you stop cameras everywhere..

Your cattled in to a one way area and it's £5 upto 15mins then £1 per minute after that !!

First time I was lost and I asked the some security bloke in the van what can I do / where to go and he told me to follow an arrow into this one way area... Now I'm stuck in the pick up area and even though the plane landed 25 minutes ago they are still being ferried from the plane. (Ryan air !!)

The Machine at the gate was purposely slow to do transactions holding the whole queue up for extra minutes trying to get out.. 🤨🤑🤑

It's midnight and the camera van is out patrolling, capturing people stopped in lay-bys or little inlets waiting...

This is a proper scummy set up, fleecing people that are collecting or dropping off customers using the airport with no free to park or collect areas... Designed to trap you and get your money.

I was forced to pay the first immoral £5 and leave the area.. once my daughter had cleared the terminal i returned and took no more than 30 seconds for her to get in the car with her hand held only luggage... Up to the gate and thank you very much another £5 charge to exit !! 🤬🤬 Remember UPTO 15min !!

I for one will never use this airport again for this reason.. Ryan air took 45 minute to bus passengers off the plane with many people forced to pay extortionate prices to park...

People avoid East Midlands and trinket flights it will cost you or your family more in the long run...

Birmingham international fast security Easy to do off and be collected for free in the drop off carpark at the top, then just walk down the covered...