The airport brought in вЂњnoise preferential routesвЂќ in 2001, designed to ensure that departing aircraft avoid built up areas when taking off. The Leicestershire airport is also home to a flying school, as well as the East Midlands Air Ambulance and an aerial survey company which uses a small propeller aircraft on a daily basis.ДЄirport management have said the вЂњageing infrastructure in the skyвЂќ means that advances in aircraft design and technology cannot currently be fully realised in the existing airspace. Most are commercial aircraft operating short-haul routes. In all, there are up to 76,000 flights to and from, or 'air movements', each year at the single-runway airport. Some 365,000 tonnes of cargo pass through the airport every year, including almost ВЈ10 billion worth of goods flown in from countries outside the EU, and both figures are rising.Д«ig air freight operators based there include DHL, TNT and UPS, while it is also a major air hub for the Royal Mail.Д®ast Midlands Airport (Image: East Midlands Airport) The UKвЂ™s airspace is already the most congested in the world, but has remained relatively unchanged for decades.Д®ast Midlands, which is part of the Manchester Airports Group, is used by around 5 million passengers a year, and serves more than 80 leisure and business destinations.Д«y night it is the UKвЂ™s busiest airports for вЂpure cargoвЂ™ aircraft, and second only to Heathrow in terms of the total amount of cargo it handles every year. East Midlands Airport has launched a complex, two year programme looking at redesigning its flight paths.Д«ecause of an increase in the amount of freight going into and out of the Castle Donington airport, management are looking at ways of improving existing flight paths without creating more noise and pollution.

Air routes map flight paths