London City Airport Blog

London City wins magazine award

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:32:44 UTC

London City is the UK’s top airport, according to Wanderlust magazine. The airport garnered an 85% approval rating, 2.6% more than its closest rival, Southampton, and 3% more than Newcastle in third place.

Founded in 1993, Wanderlust is a publication aimed at ‘independent and adventurous travellers'. The firm routinely hands out awards to leaders of the travel and tourism industry, focussing on airports, airlines and guidebook publishers.

The poll highlighted the growing importance of smaller airports, with both Robin Hood and Exeter making the top 10, with 77% and 74% respectively. Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh also proved popular with British travellers.

None of the UK’s airports made it into the global top 10. Top of the list was Singapore Changi with an impressive 92.5% score. Britain’s most famous airports, Heathrow and Stansted, absconded from the rankings altogether.

Perhaps the most interesting of the Wanderlust accolades is the Disservice to Travel award, which is handed to companies and individuals with diabolical customer service skills, or to technologies that have upset hundreds of travellers.

Unsurprisingly, the full-body scanner was a firm favourite of the editors, but the Met Office and workers' union Unite was the ungrateful recipient of the award.

London City has held the Gold Award in the Top UK Airport category for four years now. Wanderlust praised the airport’s commitment to customer service, citing its central location and ease of access as a boon to travellers.

You can view the results of the 2010 Travel Awards on the official Wanderlust website.

Swiss boost for City Airport

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:34:33 UTC

On Sunday morning, Swiss airline, Baboo, began taking orders for a new twice-daily service from London City Airport to Geneva, Switzerland, offering one-way flights from £51 per person.

The carrier, which has just five planes in its fleet, is hoping to boost business links between England and the Italian cities of Florence and Venice, opening up central Europe to rich executives and shoestring travellers alike.

Founded in 2003, Baboo maintains a base at Geneva Airport, and a vision to unite quality with affordable prices. The airline carries the red and white of the Swiss cross, painting their aeroplanes with nice flowery patterns.

Baboo will operate under a code share agreement with Irish airline, CityJet, whereby both companies can sell seats on their partner’s planes. Air France has also begun offering flights to Switzerland.

Richard Gooding, chief executive at London City, was pleased with the airport’s latest acquisition: “Baboo’s on-board product is excellent and we know it will be well-received by our passengers who demand a high level of service."

The airline has marketed the London City flights at Swiss executives, but a spokesperson for the company was keen to provide Brits with an alternative to the autumnal weather, citing London’s swirling fog as a reason to pack up and fly away.

Intrepid travellers will be able to extend their route from Geneva to a number of Swiss and Italian cities, and to Ireland and Scotland on the return trip. The first flight of the day departs at 9AM from London City, arriving in Geneva three hours later.

Terminal investment will keep passengers moving

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:52:40 UTC

London City Airport is set for a multi-million pound makeover in 2010. Despite the global meltdown, officials at London's biggest business airport clearly believe there's a future in air travel from the heart of the English capital.

The terminal reconfiguration will be managed by Atkins Global, an engineering and design consultancy which has been responsible for several major infrastructure projects at City Airport.

The planned changes to the terminal building are partly in response to the shift towards online check-in. With business and leisure passengers now frequently checking in from their office PC or even their web-enabled mobile phone en-route to the airport, London City's management team have identified the need for a new style of airport.

When the airport opened in 1987, e-tickets were still over a decade away. But these days there simply isn't the need for the more traditional, girl-behind-a-counter approach!

Online check-in makes the whole experience of flying easier and more streamlined and the modifications at City Airport are in the same vein. The new terminal design will help to avoid bottlenecks and keep passengers moving through an airport keen to hold on to its reputation as one of London's fastest.

Melanie Burnley, Director of Terminal Services, explained that they were "introducing additional security lanes to respond to the change in passenger behaviour". This involved more online check-ins and less need for traditional check-in desks. All in all she said that this would enable more passengers to go straight through to security upon arrival.

The facility already boasts of its "no-queues" policy, and claims that the average transit time for passengers going through security is just two minutes. It's an impressive statistic compared with many of the London airports and customer satisfaction is clearly high on London City's list of priorities.

£574 for a parking space

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:38:40 UTC

London City Airport has the most expensive car park in the country, the Daily Express has revealed. At £186 for a week long stay, a pre-booked space costs almost as much as two Ryanair flights to Berlin, even allowing for extras such as baggage.

A two-week stay tips the scales at £287, and that is providing that all spaces are booked in advance. Already, London City is charging customers six times the national average for long stay parking.

Turning up unprepared on departure day adds more than one hundred pounds to the cost of a week’s parking, whilst the fee for a fortnight skyrockets to more than £500, a figure that could pay for a long weekend on the Continent.

Airport officials claim that the charges have strategic value, encouraging passengers to leave their cars at home.

Norman Baker, MP for the Lewes constituency, has taken umbrage over the fees. The Liberal Democrat pointed out that excessive parking charges devalue budget airlines by adding extra costs to otherwise cheap flight tickets.

"It’s a rip-off. The amount being charged is probably enough to pay for a return flight to New York," Mr. Bates said.

London City has enjoyed an otherwise productive September. After being praised for the punctuality of its planes, the airport has announced plans to redevelop its terminal building during 2010.

Responding to the boom in online check-in facilities, London City wants to give passengers greater access to security desks, reducing the time that customers have to spend in queues, and improving connections between flyers and resident airlines.

Brave travellers can book their parking space in advance on the Airport Parking Shop website.

London City gets Airbus A318

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:35:00 UTC

London City Airport is anticipating the arrival of two new aircraft, as British Airways, the flag-carrier of the United Kingdom, launches a new route to New York City.

In March, British Airways announced a pre-tax loss of £401m, the biggest profit slump in the airline’s history. With the credit crunch in full, malevolent swing, BA had no choice but to abandon transatlantic flights from many of its UK hubs.

Almost six months later, with the recession in retreat, the airline has reasserted its dominance over UK airspace by purchasing two uniquely configured Airbus A318 aircraft, the first order of its kind.

Affectionately known as the ‘baby bus’, the A318 is designed to accommodate steep approach gradients (the angle at which the aircraft has to descend) with greater ease than the rest of the Airbus catalogue.

BA chief executive, Willie Walsh, was keen to show off his latest investment, claiming the A318 "has a big role to play in bringing a new dimension of style and convenience to the London-New York route”.

Mr Walsh was quick to point out that the A318s will carry the BA001 flight number, a designation previously reserved for Concorde.

The trip is very much a luxury purchase, however, offering a handful of business-class-only seats. With on-board mobile internet, text messaging services, and just 32 places per plane, BA’s new toys are marketed towards the discerning business executive.

Excluding Saturdays, British Airways is offering a daily London City–New York service from the 29th of September. An additional six flights will be offered from the middle of October. Prices are in the range of £2,664 per adult for a return ticket.

City Airport gets go-ahead for extra 50,000 flights per year

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:53:19 UTC

Permission has recently been granted by Newham Council for a massive expansion of London City Airport, which will see the number of arriving and departing flights increase from 73,000 to 120,000 per year. Whether this can be viewed as good news for the economy or a disaster for the environment depends very much on whom you believe.

A spokesperson from Newham council has proudly boasted of the benefits of the expansion which will include an extra £26 million for the economy, new jobs for local residents, a boost for local tourism and also the possibility of companies investing in the future in the local infrastructure.

According to a council spokesperson, residents’ concerns over noise and disruption have been taken into account in approving the planning application, and he has sought to reassure the local populace that there will be no additions to the early morning schedules and that additions to the weekend and night time flights will be kept to the bare minimum.

However, green campaigners, including Friends of the Earth, have been quick to criticise the council saying that their decision is in “brazen conflict” with the “need to tackle climate change” and that the potential for easing the local area’s unemployment has been overstated. A campaigner called on Boris Johnson to stand by his pledge to make London a green city.

Added to environmental concerns are the health implications arising from airport noise and pollution. The European Commission has stated in the past that living near an airport can increase an individual’s risk of both heart disease and stroke.