Nottingham in particular has some big employers based there; capital one, experian, eon, boots, revenue & customs etc plus reasonable financial and law sectors. If the airport were linked directly to the city centre the demand for business flights both domestic and to Benelux & Germany would increase a little. You'd also need to add to this links to Derby, Leicester and a mainline train station. What I'm driving at is the fact EMA is simply not easy to get to from all of the regions major employment areas.
sunday8pm, I agree!
At least after many decades of prevarication they are making the A453 dual carriageway but completion is a way off.
East Midlands Parkway station would not be so bad if they built a monorail to EMA (compare BHX which has same from International to the terminal) but, in my opinion, what they should have done is divert the railway through the airport and put a station at the airport. As you probably know the tram system is being extended to Clifton (finish circa 2014?) and they have asked for tenders to extend the tram line to EMA but I think we are going to have to wait at least ten years for that to happen if it does!
I think what we are saying is that airports need to have good connections to other parts of the transport system. I recall a journey I made to Basle years ago - flew Easy to Geneva - from touchdown at GVA to sitting in the train was 20 minutes with excellent rail service to Basle (and a lot cheaper than the scheduled airfare from BHX via Lufty!)