After Covid shocks, Capital's airport is flying even higher as it welcomes visitors to Scotland
Edinburgh Airport is in advanced discussions to set up a Preclearance hub in the Capital for travellers to the US and awaits a Congressional visit from Florida to confirm this next month
Today’s Inquirer long read looks into Edinburgh Airport’s remarkable resurgence and future plans. Don’t forget, in order to read all our considered journalism, you need to sign up as a paying member, if you haven’t already. It costs just £8 a month, or £80 for the year - far less than the price of a weekly cup of coffee - and you will be supporting one of Scotland’s most exciting new media ventures.

A team of US Congressional officials from Florida are due in Scotland in late September to discuss a special ‘Little America’ Preclearance zone for all passengers leaving Edinburgh Airport on flights bound for the United States.
The proposed development, which would mean housing US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel in the airport, will be the first in the UK, alongside a similar plan at Gatwick, and it will ease the transition of visitors arriving in the US and proceeding to their connecting destinations. The benefit for US passengers will be there is less waiting time at the border in Edinburgh and it will be easier when they return to the United States. For Scottish passengers, it will mean greatly reduced times in immigration zones in American airports, making it easier to catch connection flights.
This comes as Edinburgh Airport makes an astonishing recovery from the depths of Covid-19, and now directly serves Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Orlando, Washington, JFK in New York and Newark, as well as links to Calgary and Toronto with Air Canada
The Preclearance zone at Edinburgh Airport will use new biometric technology and infrastructure to allow visitors to use the airport facilities, including shops and restaurants, before being granted admission to the United States. Dublin and Shannon Airports are the only airports currently on the British-Irish Isles with US Preclearance.
“Dublin Airport has been able to outperform as an airport for its size because it is the base of Aer Lingus and has the US Preclearance facility which is a huge advantage for the American market. The American Government will pay for its staff in Dublin, but has been reluctant to do this elsewhere,” said Gordon Dewar, the Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport, speaking at an Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce seminar.
“We think achieving US Preclearance in Edinburgh will be transformational for us. Not only will we get more frequency from the existing airlines, but we can start new routes that we’ve never had before,” he added.
Anyone from across Europe will be able to take an EasyJet flight to Edinburgh, and transfer for their Transatlantic flight in Edinburgh, which is a “really big win”.
The United States has 15 Preclearance locations in six countries, including Ireland, Canada, Aruba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the United Arab Emirates.
Glasgow v Edinburgh: different flight paths
The fortunes of Scotland’s two main central belt airports are starkly in focus.
In 2012, Glasgow had 50% of the transatlantic market share to Scotland, but this has now dipped to 11%, as international carriers have chosen Edinburgh, which only had a single direct route to the United States at the time. This is the United Airlines flight to Newark, which is still running.
The city region’s mature and developed economy is inextricably linked to the airport’s success, bringing in visitors for both business and pleasure. Dewar says that visitors are not buying the airline when making their choices but buying the destination. He says Edinburgh and indeed Scotland remain compelling places for visitors to explore.
“People want to get here as directly as possible. As a city and nation, we have an enormously good offer whether its in education, tourism or business. One of the reasons that more operators are choosing us is that we operate like a small London airport, rather than a regional airport. We are a Capital City airport,” he said.
Gordon Dewar said the airport has strengths which the likes of Copenhagen and Dublin do not have, and this makes it an attractive landing spot for North Americans planning to visit the UK, Europe and beyond.

In July 2023, the airport recorded its fourth busiest day on record, and as the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe gets underway, the prospects are looking rosy for Scotland’s biggest airport. In June 2023 passenger recovery was 99% of its pre-Covid passenger levels.
Ownership structure has benefits
In 2012, the current owners, GIP, Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity infrastructure company based in New York, bought the airport along with Gatwick, taking it on a separate path to its former BAA partner airports, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
“For the first time, the airports had real commercial acumen being applied. The airports were not simply branch offices of BAA, which focused largely on Heathrow and Gatwick in London,” he said.
Dewar said he was able, as Edinburgh Airport’s chief executive, to speak directly with airlines to offer the best deals on attracting new routes.
In 2013, Edinburgh airport handled just under 10 million passengers, with Glasgow around 7.5 million. Then there were 23 airlines to 121 destinations flying into Edinburgh. However, since then there has been a startling shift towards Edinburgh.
It has been a decade of growth with the airport now flying to 156 destinations, up 35 routes, while Glasgow has lost four routes, and flies to 87 destinations. More than 34 airlines use Edinburgh, up 11 airlines, while Glasgow has lost 7 airlines, and now serves only 15 airlines.
“We are up nearly five million passengers since 2013. What we are seeing is that the airlines are voting with their feet – any new airline coming into Scotland is choosing Edinburgh. And we are capturing the airlines that used to go to Glasgow, they are coming to Edinburgh.”
One of the reasons for this is that the airlines make more money per passenger.
Decarbonisation is a big ticket for airport
Moreover, the airport means jobs too. While there are 750 jobs directly employed by the airport, another 5,100 jobs are with the airlines, food retailers and airport shopping. The airport is the hub serving Scotland’s massively important tourism sector, which feeds off the airport’s success.
However, Dewar has many frustrations about Scottish policymakers’ lack of appreciation for the airport’s critical part in sustaining the Scottish economy. He says that a local Edinburgh Council decision to refuse the building of a new road on a former runway, which the airport would fund to relieve traffic congestion, has been highly frustrating.
He also understands that the Scottish Government’s commitment to building a carbon net zero nation means that aviation, which is increasingly viewed by some as an environmental pariah, has to do more on decarbonisation.
He said that the airport, which already claims carbon neutral status for the operation of its own facilities, is spending a great deal of money supporting airlines that are using cleaner, newer fuel-efficient aircraft. The airport itself is planning a local district heating system using a combination of solar farms and wind turbines, and is examining renewable energy storage systems. The extra energy created by this zero carbon scheme can then be shared with new residential developments now being planned beyond the perimeter of the airport.
However, Dewar and his team remain convinced that most people in Scotland still want to travel for work and pleasure and enjoy new experiences and that the airport and air travel remains a fundamental part of modern life. Dewar is encouraging policymakers to engage more in what he sees as “grown-up” and informed discussion on Edinburgh Airport’s importance to the city’s economic success.
“I never seen a more aggressive anti-tourism, anti-growth, anti-business legislative environment in my life. Whether it’s short-term lets, tourism levies, the deposit return scheme. You name it, is has gone up and up and up,” he said.
COMING UP: Don’t miss Saturday’s Inquirer to find out why Taylor Swift has made the switch from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
While this would certainly be a bonus for travellers - and Efinburgh airport - I Agree with earlier comments. I came through the airport on way to France and the checkin in area was absolute chaos. People couldn’t get through to get to the escalators to departures due to the long queues of people checking in that was blocking all access routes. And no one seemed to be there to manage. Families and passengers in wheelchairs were just stuck . Need to do better on this one guys.
I signed up to the Edinburgh Inquirer to read serious, balanced journalism and this article was very disappointing. I echo Graeme Dickson's thoughts; by quoting Gordon Dewar verbatim with no counter, you did "give the airport a free ride". Yes, the airport may be bringing a lot of people to the city (and we can discuss separately whether that's a good thing) but these people's first impressions of the city must be very poor. The passenger experience is dreadful: long queues and overcrowding at every stage of the journey through the airport; baggage delays; many gates with no air bridge and trips up and down crowded staircases instead; and chaos getting in and out of the airport. New "improvements" have been ill-thought out; access to the new East Terminus taxi hub requires arriving passengers to drag their luggage up a ramp to its first floor taxi rank. There is no lift or escalator alternative; did the designers not consider that people using taxis might be the older or less agile amongst us? Please inquire rather than regurgitate the airport's PR puff!