Related Articles
These photographs show the early days of operations at East Midlands Airport.
They were taken by Glyn Foulkes-Williams, of Shepshed, not long after the airport first opened in 1965.
He recalled: “The pictures were taken when I was 14 years old. We had heard about the airport opening, it was a big thing. It was magic – an airport was opening. There were not many people there at the time. We just biked up to see what was going on and there was a big viewing platform.”
It was on April 2, 1965, that the first flight landed at the new airport from Glasgow but its story actually began in 1963. That year, the East Midlands Airport Joint Committee, which was formed to find a site to replace Burnaston Aerodrome, purchased Castle Donington Airfield, a former RAF base that had been decommissioned in 1946, for the princely sum of £37,500.
The following year, planning permission was granted for the new £1.37 million airport. Officially opened in July 1965 by the Duke of Edinburgh, that same year, Derby Airways, which had operated at Burnaston, moved to the new airport. The company would become British Midland.
* Read more Bygones stories here
Since then, the story of East Midlands Airport has been one of continuous growth. By the 1970s, it started to increase the amount of freight it handled. A second terminal, Cargo Terminal 2, opened and Royal Mail set up a base there. By the 1980s, ELAN (now DHL) had started freight operations at the airport and, in 2000, would open its hub at “Cargo West”.
12 stunning photos show Kedleston Road, Ashbourne Road and Mackworth areas of Derby in 1960s
The 1990s and 2000s were punctuated by further investments as passenger numbers rocketed. In the mid-1990s a new departures building opened as part of a £14.5 million project and, in 2003, a check-in hall extension was added. And in 2008, work was completed on a £10 million redevelopment of the terminal, providing new shops, restaurants and bus terminal.
See more Derby nostalgia on our Twitter and Facebook pages .
