The UK’s largest rock festival takes place at Donington Park next to the airport from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 June, with campsites opening on Wednesday 11 June. It is expected to be attended by around 75,000 people attracted by headliners Green Day, Sleep Token and Korn along with dozens of other acts – bringing significant extra traffic to the roads near the airport including the M1, A42, A50 and A453.
So while festival organisers have plans in place to keep traffic flowing, East Midlands Airport customers are advised to allow extra time for journeys to and from the airport if they are travelling when Download Festival is underway.
The airport has 466 flights arriving and departing over the course of the festival’s three days and has arranged for airlines to alert their passengers to potential delays. Airport representatives have been in regular dialogue with festival organisers to understand their traffic plans.
Head of Airfield Operations at East Midlands Airport, Lauren Turner, said: “We start planning for the arrival of Download in October and have had plenty of meetings with the organisers to make sure the festival doesn’t impact on our operations or our customers.
“Last year, the new arrangements for getting people to and from the festival site worked really well so with the same arrangements in place this year, we’re hoping things will run smoothly again. But we advise our customers travelling to the airport while the festival is on to allow some extra time.”
Lauren added: “We would remind anyone planning to film the festival that it is illegal to fly drones close to the airport. This follows a successful prosecution when a drone was used to film the festival. Flying drones puts the airport operation at risk, potentially leading to passenger flights being diverted and causing delays to air cargo flights.”
Airport users are advised to check latest traffic and travel reports before they set off and follow East Midlands Airport on social media for latest flight information East Midlands Airport (@EMA_Airport) X (twitter.com) and www.facebook.com/EastMidsAirport