Exclusive:Edinburgh Airport to pump £150m a year into biggest-ever expansion amid ongoing criticism
Measures to improve the passenger experience are said to be ‘long overdue’
The biggest-ever expansion of Scotland’s busiest airport will see spending triple to £150 million a year to cope with booming passenger numbers and growing demand at its car hire centre, which is already busier than Heathrow’s.
Indicative dates and figures suggest the overall project will cost the best part of £1 billion, The Scotsman has learned.
The latest details of Edinburgh Airport’s massive development plans come weeks after it announced it handled more than 1 million extra passengers last year to set a new record of nearly 17m travellers coming through its gates.
The huge project will expand the departure lounge, create space for more aircraft beside the terminal, add extra departure gates and amalgamate the two international arrivals halls.
Chief executive Gordon Dewar said: “We are embarking on the biggest investment the airport has ever seen.
“If you thought you saw a lot of change in the last ten years, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, which covers the airport, and who is a regular passenger, said: “Measures to improve the passenger experience are long overdue.”
Several business and public body leaders have severely criticised the state of the airport over the last year, with Brechin City Football Club chairman Kevin Mackie describing it as “frankly embarrassing” in a post on the business networking site LinkedIn which attracted nearly 800 mostly critical comments about the terminal.
However, the airport has sought to play down such reproaches, pointing to nearly 90 per cent satisfaction in surveys of more than 55,000 passengers in 2024.
Mr Dewar said the expansion was primarily to handle growing passenger and aircraft numbers, but it would also see a “holistic” revamp of the terminal in contrast to past piecemeal improvements.
Five new aircraft stands will be added by June so more passengers can board direct from the terminal, with eight new departure gates by April next year.
A “big” expansion of the departure lounge, which will be extended towards the runway, is scheduled by June 2028 with a single international arrivals hall to be created by April 2029.
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A spokesperson for the airport later told The Scotsman the dates were “indicative”.
Mr Dewar told the Edinburgh Airport Consultative Committee: “We are going into an incredibly busy period.
“There is almost no part of the airport operation - baggage, immigration, gates, runway - that isn’t getting revamped.”
Mr Dewar said the work, which he admitted was likely to cause “huge disruption”, involved a major increase in annual investment.
He said: “If you look back 12-13 years, the average spend would have been £30-40m.
“We are about to go to a period when we will be spending over £100m every year for the next five or six years.
“We’re anticipating it peaking at about £150m a year, which is a massive increase on what we’ve done in the past.”
Mr Dewar had previously said such spending increased from £52m to £80m last year.
He said: “The other good news is scale - a big, multi-year project that allows us to think much more holistically about how we stitch the operation and flow of the airport back together again, so it really is a big, big shift.”
Mr Dewar contrasted that approach with the creation of the airport’s immigration hall, which he described as a “very temporary structure which has probably been in place for longer than we would have liked”.
He said the latest plans were “driven by our shareholders being very committed to the long term”.
French airports giant VINCI acquired a majority stake in the airport in a £1.27 billion deal in 2024.
Other aspects of the overhaul include expansion of the car rental area, which was due to be completed by the end of March and will now “be in place for the summer”, Mr Dewar said.
He said it was needed to meet increasing demand and to provide more space for electric car charging.
The chief executive said: “It’s unbelievable - our car rental business is bigger than Heathrow’s. It’s astounding.
“We are such a gateway to the Highlands and Islands.”
Enterprise Mobility, the UK’s biggest car hire group, which also includes Alamo and National, said the proportion of passengers renting vehicles was higher at Edinburgh than at other UK airports.
Mr Dewar said a revised planning application for the long-awaited eastern access road from the Gogar roundabout would be submitted this year, with the project expected to be completed by May 2028.
It is designed to reduce pressure on the often congested sole access route via Eastfield Road, which he described ten years ago as “absolutely at the edge of our surface access capacity”.
The city council rejected the plans five years ago given they conflicted with the area’s development strategy.
Mr Dewar said: “There’s no guarantee when or how we get that planning [approval] but it’s a really important strategic investment, with our money and our land.
“One of the big benefits will be for buses which are stuck in congestion, as there will be priority measures [for them].”
He said the first resurfacing of the runway for 17 years, which has continued overnight since November, was a week behind schedule but still due to be completed by the end of March as planned.
The £30m project follows repeated unplanned closures for emergency repairs.
Ms Jardine said: "Although I am delighted to see Edinburgh Airport go from strength to strength, I would urge them to ensure local residents are consulted and reassured that their concerns are taken into account.
“As a regular user of the airport, I recognise that measures to improve the passenger experience are long overdue.
“While expansion will help protect the vital contribution it makes to our economy, any plans must take into account the pressure placed on local infrastructure and disruption for local households."
Scottish Conservatives transport spokesperson Sue Webber said the plans were “extremely welcome”.
She said: “This will help boost Scotland’s economic growth and deliver jobs at a time when our economy badly needs it due to the incompetence from the SNP.”
Graham Simpson, co-convener of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on aviation and Central Scotland Reform MSP, said: “These ambitious plans will be a huge boost for the airport and for the economy.
“This level of investment is to be welcomed and I look forward to seeing how things progress.”
However, Scottish Greens transport spokesperson Mark Ruskell said: “If we are to have any hope of hitting our climate targets, expanding airports and flight capacity is the last thing we should be doing.”
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