No warm welcome to Scotland at Edinburgh airport arrivals hall

Arriving at Edinburgh airport after a three-week road trip in the USA was a depressing experience. Not because I didn’t want to come home.

I love America, but I love Edinburgh too, and I missed my grandchildren, my own bed and my cat. And I was weary of living in two time zones.

I was five hours behind the UK while I was away, which would not normally matter once I had adjusted to the time change, but as a freelancer, I had work to do and on a couple of occasions I had to wake up in the early hours of the morning to meet deadlines. It will be a relief to be working at the same time as my colleagues.

No, my low mood was caused by the arrivals hall at Edinburgh airport, which is a dreary, unwelcoming space. Even the airport’s chief executive, Gordon Dewar, agrees it is a mess. He admitted last week that it is “very industrial and very dated” and not up to the standard to which airport bosses aspire.

So do something about it then. Our airport is the busiest in Scotland. At least one million passengers pass through it every month, even more during the summer season.

There are 17 million people expected to have used the airport by the end of the year, many of them coming to Edinburgh for the first time.

Their first impression of our city matters, whether they are flying in from London or New York, so it is surely incumbent on the airport to ensure that they offer the best possible welcome.

Mr Dewar’s admission also came just as the airport introduced a £2.50 price hike to its drop-off fee, charging drivers £8.50 to pick up or drop off passengers. Gordon Dewar blames a rise in the airport’s annual rates bill for the increase. “We can’t pass it on to the airlines because we’ll just lose airlines,” he said.

So once again, long-suffering passengers have to stump up. Imagine having to pay to get dropped off at Waverley station. Of course you can’t, so why do we have to pay for the ‘privilege’ of turning up at the airport?