East Midlands Airport History

East Midlands Airport started life in 1965. Financially, it was not an instant success. Initially East Midlands Airport found success as a freight, rather than as a passenger airport.

Further improvements were made to the facilities of East Midlands Airport over the following years. Need to grow.. In 1985, a million passengers passed through East Midlands Airport for the first time and a year later Princess Anne was opening a £3 million terminal extension.

Significant change in the running of East Midlands Airport came about in 1987 when it became a public limited company, East Midlands Airport plc, following Government legislation demanding that local authorities ran the operation as an arms length public sector enterprise.

In 1992 another major terminal extension was proposed for East Midlands Airport but the owning local authorities, could not fund the development. So in 1993 and in the face of Government pressure to reduce public spending, the local authority shareholders took the bold decision to become the first major regional airport to enter the private sector.

East Midlands Airport was purchased for £24.3 million by the National Express Group, who recognised the superb potential of East Midlands Airport. During the 8 year period in which they owned East Midlands Airport they invested an additional £77 million in the Airport infrastructure and passenger facilities.

Other companies, too, have showed their faith in the future growth of East Midlands Airport. In April 2000, international parcel courier DHL unveiled a new 35 million purpose-built facility on the East Midlands Airport site.

The first completed building was a new regional headquarters for Powergen which was followed shortly after by an Express by Holiday Inn hotel and a Regus office block. Planning permission has also been granted for a Radisson Hotel which will include conference, business and leisure facilities.

In March 2001, National Express sold East Midlands Airport to the Manchester Airport Group along with it's sister airport, Bournemouth International for £241 million.

Since then East Midlands has continued to perform well. Passenger figures in 2001 soared 7% to £2.38 million and low cost carriers Go and bmibaby commenced operations from East Midlands Airport in March.

Cargo operations, too, have continued to grow and East Midlands Airport is now widely recognised as the UKs largest pure cargo airport. As well as DHL, TNT and UPS both have bases here and the Airport is also one of Royal Mail's primary hubs.



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