East Midlands Airport is 50 Years Old
 

East Midlands Airport marks 50th anniversary - BBC News

Picture Gallery : East Midlands Airport celebrates 50 years | Leicester Mercury

I love the old pictures especially the designs and layout of the terminal in the 70's with seating right in front of the check in desks and long tubular light shades hanging from the ceiling.

We spent countless days spotting there in the early 1970s, a great little airport with very friendly staff back then. The apron security was a small 'A' board which said 'Members of the public are not admitted beyond this point'.

It gets worse! (Or better...)

As my dad worked for BMA, I was once taken onto the ramp, aged 7 or 8, on the back of a BMA tractor by one of his colleagues. Cue Eric Dyer, Airport Commandant, on the 'phone to dad to ask what on earth was going on. Amazing to think that Mr Dyer looked out of the office and spotted such events. And we could drive straight on.

Fast-forward to 1978, and I have a summer job with the airport grounds maintenance depot, and learning to drive. One of the chaps allows me to practice in their 7.5 tonne flat bed truck, and drive onto the ramp to turn the truck around in a large loop, much to the consternation of the folks in the VCR.

Different times.

Sadly, it's lost much of it's character with the rise of lo-cos. It now seems like a huge facility for processing SLF. I have trouble spotting the remains of the original "small but perfectly-formed" CLASP-constructed terminal building.

However, my local airport, Teesside, remains very neat but deserted, clinging to commercial life.

EMA
 

Used to be a crowd of us spotting in the departure lounge, we colonised one end. No hope of that happening now. I can remember wandering around outside the Fields hanger, nobody seemed to bother, and even got inside the odd aircraft, those were the days!

I only live down the road but hardly ever use the place now, with the LHR link long gone and no sensible Worldwide connections since KLM went it usually means a trip to BHX or LHR.