Edinburgh Airport (EDI) > Reviews > As good as it gets these days

Author's product rating:   

Prices	Average
Is it worth visiting?	Good
Transport links	Good
Family Friendly	Good

Advantages:	User friendly, decent service & staff, flight choice
Disadvantages:	Security can be slow, location due to volume of traffic on mian roads

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Large airports have their advantages, a large selection of airline carriers fly to a huge selection of worldwide destinations. However large airports have their disadvantages such as being not particularly user friendly.
Consider getting to terminal 4 at London Heathrow from terminal 1 with only minutes to catch your flight & you'll understand what I mean. Expierence the friendly shop & restaurant staff who don't even utter the words 'please' or 'thank you', you would be as well carrying out the transaction with a machine!!

Smaller airports can be more user friendly but lack a choice of destinations to fly to which restricts their use; it would be nice to get the 'happy medium'. This where I think Edinburgh Airport has got the balance just right, you can fly across the Atlantic, Europe & domestically without the hassle of a large airport & it remains quite user friendly.

Edinburgh airport is situated on the outskirts of the city & is easy to access by shuttle bus from the city centre or by taxi. If you are driving there it can be difficult in peak times & you need to take this into account, add between 45-60 minutes to your journey within these times.
Car parking is well catered for with a choice of facilities; some are located on the outer perimeters of the airport & offer reasonable prices for long stay parking with shuttle buses to & from the terminal building.
The closer you park to the airport building the more you pay, the multi storey park directly across from the departure hall costs about £14.90 a day. Prices rise on a regular basis & I would be surprised if they have increased again by the time you have read this review!!
Still, for the money you can park inside in a well lit, organised & relatively safe car park with trolleys, lifts & ample disable parking to assist the car owner.

Once you enter the terminal building the entire lower floor is dedicated to departures & arrivals with the baggage carousels close by. There is ample information as you enter the hall to inform you where to check in & most of the airlines have information desks close to the outer wall. Checking in is usually quick & efficient with most airlines, there are self service machines available where necessary.

If you decide to purchase duty free goods that are a little large to take on board (e.g. washing machine!!) they can be left at the airport & collected on your return. The collection desk is close to the baggage carousel on the same level & the system really works well.

You need to go to the upper level after checking in, up there is a food court (expensive but half decent food is available), they include Burger King, La Brioche, Franklins of Boston & Village Grill.
Other facilities include toilets, bureaux de change, two cash machines which surprisingly are free to use. However, be aware that they provide Scottish notes which often annoy English passengers who are travelling back to England.

Also on level two (Landside) is a decent selection of shops selling books, music, papers, travel items & loads more. There is a Boots, Jenners (Scottish version of Harrods), Accessorize, Impulse Music, Borders Books, Tie Rack, Thornton's & World News.

From there you enter security, for a while it was a slow process getting through security, BAA who run this airport would only utilise two x-ray machines & the queues would stretch for about 100 yards even at 5'o clock in the morning. However, late last year a Scottish MP complained publicly about the dire situation & there has been a significant improvement since.

Once through security (Airside), and they are usually pretty efficient, you have choice of more cafes & shops as well as comfy seats & ample information screens. The shops include Dixons, Austin Reed, World Shopping & World News. Cafes include J.D. Weatherspoon & Costa Coffee. There is also a National Shoe Shine Company area where you can have your shoes efficiently cleaned while you wait!!

It's not too large an airport to get from one end of the building to the other so finding your gate shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The staff in general are quite helpful & the distance from departure lounge to aircraft is usually quite short, longer distances are usually carried out by shuttle bus.

On arrival, it is well signposted for exits & collecting baggage, I have never had to wait more than 10-15 minutes to collect my bags & to date nothing has ever went missing. The car rental companies such as Avis, Hertz, Europcar, National & Budget are all represented on the lower level.

In all, a decent airport, not too big to become a pain to use & small enough to be user friendly.