Wednesday June 25th 2025
Edinburgh Airport
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Edinburgh Airport, Scotland’s busiest airport with over 15 million passengers a year, has been criticised over their standards for the provision of assistance in a new report, stating the airport ‘needs improvements’.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) 2024/2025 Airport Accessibilty Performace Report rated Edinburgh Airport as ‘needs improvement’ as they “did not meet the standards for the provision of assistance in a timely manner”.
This rating was made due to Edinburgh being below the performance standard for the waiting time of assistance for arriving passengers with disabilities and mobility issues that needed accessibility services.
In the report, it stated the problems were “primarly due to operational issues caused by a change of contractor for its service provider”. It explained that due to change of contract to a new service provider in December 2023, there have been operational issues up until June of this year.
Issues created due to the change of contract included “significant attrition of its assistance service workforce”, this caused issues with managerial oversight and required time to recruit replacement staff.
Despite these issues, the airport has invested in both facilities and staffing to address an increasing demand for accessibility services with a 30% investment increase since the previous year, instructing the new contracted service provider to refresh management.
This investment has had an immediate impact on the services provided, leading to the report stating that the airport is improving performance, now providing a “very good” standard since the operational issues ended.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said, “As the CAA’s report states, this rating was given to the airport during a particularly challenging time for our PRM operation, due to a change of provider, staff shortages, and a surge in demand for the service.”
“We have increased our investment in the service to more than £6 million and have worked closely with our provider to implement new and improved processes and oversight. These efforts have led to significant improvement, and our goal remains to return to and maintain a Good or Very Good rating.”
Alongside Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow Prestwick was also rated as needing improvements due to similar issues. Despite the criticism, Edinburgh Airport is now running at a ‘very good’ standard, just in time for millions of passengers to use the airport for summer travel.
Click here for the full-report.
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