Airport Guide

History of London City Airport

Originally proposed in 1981 by the newly-formed London Docklands Development Corporation as a means of connecting the burgeoning district with the rest of the country and Europe, work on City Airport finally got underway in 1986. Just one year later, the first commercial flights were taking off and the airport handled some 133,000 passengers in its first 12 months alone.

In 1992, the runway was lengthened, allowing for a number of new services to use the airport, while passenger numbers were also boosted by the opening of a jet centre catering for the corporate aviation sector in 2002 and a new holding point for aircraft in 2003.

Links to the rest of the capital were improved significantly in 2005 with the opening of a special Docklands Light Railway link (DLR), while recently-unveiled plans have outlined the new operators' visions to handle around eight million passengers a year by 2030 without the need of an extra runway.

Travelling to London City Airport

The new DLR connection has made it far easier for non-drivers to get to London City Airport, allowing for easy travel from any point in London, including the main mainline railway stations, via the underground. Likewise, there are regular bus services to the east of London, though specific shuttle services to the airport were withdrawn with the introduction of the DLR.

Drivers who chose to negotiate central London are able to make use of the adequate long and short-term parking facilities at the airport, while there are also a large amount of taxis always waiting outside the main terminal building.

Airlines Flying from London City Airport

Unlike most of the smaller airports, London City is at its busiest during the winter months, when a number of airlines, most notably Swiss International, Austrian, and City Jet, fly to ski resort gateway destinations. Zurich, Geneva, Strasbourg and Milan are among the destinations popular among winter sports enthusiasts.

Aside from these, Air France operates a number of services through CityJet, with frequent shuttle flights to Dublin, Paris and Nice, while British Airways' BA CityFlyer goes to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Madrid, Nice and Warsaw.

German national carrier Lufthansa flies to Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, with the Scandinavian countries also being covered by SAS.

Despite the short runway length, British Airways recently introduced transatlantic services, linking the east of London with New York, via Shannon in Ireland for refuelling.