Long Stay

£54.99 for 8 days tells you who Long Stay is for

This is East Midlands Airport’s on-site budget play for week-long trips, sitting a 3–5 minute shuttle ride from T1. Long Stay suits holidaymakers who want lower on-airport pricing and don’t mind loading bags onto a bus instead of walking to the terminal. It’s a park-your-own setup, so you keep your keys and pick your bay, then head to the nearest stop for the regular shuttle loop to departures.

Headline rate runs from about £54.99 for 8 days when you pre-book, but reviewers on Purple Parking repeatedly say the real savings appear when you book Long Stay through brokers instead of direct. Same physical car park, different pricing. Turn-up-on-the-day is consistently called out as the expensive move, so treat that 8-day figure as a pre-book target, not a walk-up expectation.

Transfer time to the terminal is usually 3–5 minutes once you’re on the shuttle, and buses run frequently enough that most reviews describe the whole process as “very smoothly” handled from entry to exit. You drive through the ANPR barrier, park in a signed Long Stay section, jump on the next bus, and roll straight into T1’s departures area without any extra security check at the car park itself.

Regulars on UK comparison sites often stick with the same broker, like Purple Parking, for East Midlands Long Stay 1 year after year, partly for familiar directions and partly for bundled discounts. What they don’t do is leave booking to the night before. Lock it in as soon as your flights are set and screenshot the confirmation with the postcode before you set off.