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Review: Luxair’s first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

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On Monday, London City Airport welcomed a new direct route to Europe with the introduction of Luxair’s service to Antwerp. We went along to review it.

It marks the resumption of a route that has been operating for most of the past 25 years, previously by CityJet and Air Antwerp, before coming to a halt during covid.

This time, Luxembourgian flag carrier Luxair is making a go of it. It will mark the airline’s first flight that doesn’t originate or terminate in Luxembourg.

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

Why Antwerp?

I always thought of Antwerp as a quaint Belgian city. I was wrong.

As I’ve quickly found out, the city is home to Europe’s largest petrochemical cluster, in part because it is also Europe’s second largest port. Total Energies operates its largest complex in Europe here, and that’s before you consider the refineries and plants from the other large producers.

Antwerp is also home to the largest diamond district in the world. Over 80% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through Antwerp’s multiple bourses and certification centres.

There’s plenty of business travel here for Luxair to be getting on with, plus interest from anyone who might want to spend a weekend break exploring the city’s beautiful Renaissance old town.

(And I recommend you do – despite miserable mid-January rain, the town centre is stunning, a lovely conglomeration of old and new architecture.)

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

Luxair’s flights to Antwerp

Right now, Luxair is offering a four times weekly service between London City and Antwerp. It is going five weekly in April. Here are the flight timings:

  • Departing London City at 6:40am on Mondays and Tuesdays, arriving in Antwerp at 8:40am. Return 9:15am arriving at 9:15am in London.
  • Departing London City at 5:05pm on Thursdays and Fridays, arriving in Antwerp at 7:05pm. Return 7:45pm arriving at 7:45pm in London.

The flight is operated on a 78-seat De Havilland Q400 Dash 8. It’s a noisy propeller plane, in other words, but perfectly adequate for the 45-minute journey across the channel. Seating is 2-2, so everyone is in an aisle or window seat.

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

Luxair offers a full service on the flight (at least, as full as you can get on a flight this short). In economy, this meant a full-size croissant plus a choice of beverage (hot, cold or even alcoholic, I believe). It’s certainly an improvement on the kettle crisps and water you get on BA’s short haul services.

After a bumpy approach into Antwerp due to the weather we touched down. Antwerp Airport is absolutely tiny – there are just three gates – and the whole airport is about half the size of an out-of-town Tesco Extra.

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

It took us about five minutes to pass through immigration, and if you’ve checked a bag you won’t be waiting long as the aircraft stand is about 20 metres away from the terminal building!

Given the small and speedy size of the airports at both ends, you’re probably looking at a travel time of an hour or so when you factor in check-in and security and immigration. As Robert Sinclair, CEO of London City Airport noted, it’s probably the fastest way to get to mainland Europe from the UK, full stop.

What is there to do in Antwerp?

It’s quite nice, actually. The city centre is perfectly walkable, and features a range of architecture from gothic brick architecture of old town houses to the postmodernism of Michael Graves’ Radisson Blu building opposite Antwerp Centraal station:

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

Speaking of the station, apparently it’s been rated ‘the most beautiful train station in the world’. It’s certainly not ugly, but I’ll let you be the judge!

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

The city has a surprising gastronomic scene – we ate at Fiera, a fantastic restaurant inside an old diamond bourse. There’s beer, of course, plus breaking-the-rules chocolate from father and son duo The Chocolate Line.

Review: Luxair's first flight from London City Airport to Antwerp

There’s also plenty of art. Although the Rubens house is currently under renovation you can find plenty of Rubens elsewhere, including inside the unusual Antwerp Cathedral. The point is, you could easily spend a long weekend here.

In terms of frequent flyer rewards, Luxair is a partner with Lufthansa’s Miles & More programme. This means that you can earn and redeem Miles & More miles on the Antwerp flights. It is NOT part of the broader Star Alliance, however, so you cannot use miles issued by other Star Alliance frequent flyer schemes such as United MileagePlus.

Thanks to London City Airport, Luxair and Visit Antwerpen for inviting us along.

Head for Points made a financial contribution to the Woodland Trust as part of this trip. The Woodland Trust creates and manages forests in the UK in accordance with the Woodland Carbon Code.

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Comments (55)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • tony says:
    18 Jan18 January 05:17

    And again there we have the award winning journalism (TM)

    “Seating is 2-2, so everyone is in an aisle or middle seat.”

    If you insist….

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:
      18 Jan18 January 05:48

      I missed that, I was just thinking at the time how much I hate the narrow Dash-8 seats. I normally like flying on turboprops but this aircraft is an exception. Does Luxair block the seat next to you in business class? That would make it more comfortable.

      I think it was 2007 the last time I went to Antwerp, I had used both VLM direct from London City (in a Fokker 50 which I prefer) and also KLM via AMS then onto the Thalys train (which had a KL code and earned Flying Blue miles). It’s been a long time but I agree with Rhys that it’s worth a visit.

      • Andrew. says:
        18 Jan18 January 09:05

        They are functional, and considerably less comfortable than the average service bus.

        No point in blocking seats out – or even selecting seats. Before the door has closed they’ll be playing the game of shifting the heaviest passengers around to balance the load anyway.

    • Peter says:
      18 Jan18 January 07:34

      Well technically it would be the middle of the plane 🤷🏼

      • tony says:
        18 Jan18 January 10:59

        You might have got away with that had it been described as window or middle. Anyway, these things happen. I only flagged it because it is after all award winning journalism (TM). Am sure the AI chatbots Rob is presumably already recruiting won’t make such careless mistakes.

        • Rob says:
          18 Jan18 January 11:13

          As a test we had ChatGPT write an article on the British Airways A380 fleet. It was actually not bad and most lesser sites would happily have run it unaltered. It’s no longer a good time to be a writer.

    • L Allen says:
      18 Jan18 January 10:32

      I saw that – no window seats!

  • City Flyer says:
    18 Jan18 January 05:20

    “ It’s certainly an improvement on the kettle crisps and water you get on BA’s short haul services.”

    Not a fair comparison if flying out of LCY where BA is still complimentary full service in economy.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
    18 Jan18 January 06:33

    The station is indeed beautiful with a weird couple of escalators that go flat in the middle before continuing up/down which can be quite disconcerting.

    The royal museum of fine arts has recently reopened after a renovation.

    And the renovation and expansion of an old fire station into the Port Authority HQ by Zaha Hadid is stunning,

  • David B says:
    18 Jan18 January 07:06

    Antwerp also has the most stunning quarter of Continental Art Nouveau domestic architecture. Astonishing.

  • Mikeact says:
    18 Jan18 January 07:49

    Where does it go after arriving back in London at 9.15am ?

    • Concerto says:
      18 Jan18 January 07:51

      Probably does a rotation back to Luxembourg.

    • The Original David says:
      18 Jan18 January 07:59

      Back to LUX

      • Mikeact says:
        18 Jan18 January 08:25

        So it wouldn’t be a revenue flight…going back empty seems strange.

        • Rhys says:
          18 Jan18 January 08:28

          It’s going back to Luxembourg as a revenue flight!

          It’s quite common to operates routes like this, especially low cost carriers. It’s one of the ways easyJet etc can grow their network without opening new bases.

  • Concerto says:
    18 Jan18 January 07:51

    Excellent article.
    I was in Antwerp a few times some 7 or so years back and the city is well worth a visit. Quite a musical history (Ockeghem anyone?).
    VLM had a flight to Geneva but the plane was almost empty in both directions. It’s also quite easy to get around Belgium from Antwerp using the train and there was a decent bus service to Germany.
    As for train stations, I think that there is one in Porto, Portugal, which is rated the most beautiful, with blue tilework all over the walls.

    • CraigV says:
      18 Jan18 January 08:47

      You’re thinking of Sao Bento station, just round the corner from the lovely IC.

      • RussellH says:
        18 Jan18 January 10:14

        Both stations, Antwerp Centraal and Porto São Bento are very well worth visiting for their architecture alone. Utterly different from each other, though.

    • Bagoly says:
      19 Jan19 January 15:02

      Ockeghem.
      Well certainly a long history, but things only become pleasant to my ear 250 years later!

  • Paul says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:02

    I worked in Antwerp for a couple of days a week for few months in 2015 or so. The client’s office was a short distance from the airport, and it was a strange sensation to walk through a housing estate and arrive at the terminal. Getting through the airport took no time at all, except on the odd occasion when they were running a tourist jet service in the summer. Apart from the noise, flying was fun too as the altitude was low so you got great views.

    In many ways it proved to be a typical Belgian city, with a grand market place and many places to eat stew and drink strong beer. Some areas seem incongruously modern, which I believe is a result of the city being a target for V2 rockets once it had been take by Allied forces in late WW2.

  • Stu_N says:
    18 Jan18 January 08:04

    Had a very pleasant 24 hours in Antwerp last summer, breaking the drive between Alsace and Rotterdam ferry. Lovely town and loads to see and do for a weekend. The good scene is probably the best in Benelux – we ate at Fine Fleur which was truly excellent, would recommend. I’d happily go back.

    Stayed at Sapphire House (Marriot) which was lovely too, boutiquey and individual restoration of a building in the diamond quarter.

    • meta says:
      18 Jan18 January 10:36

      Staying at Sapphire House in two week’s time for a long weekend. Thanks for the recommendation.

      • Stu_N says:
        18 Jan18 January 15:25

        Just one thing to note— the restaurant (and possibly the hotel, frankly we didn’t notice) is entirely plant-based menus. Breakfast was great – imaginative choices – but if you are expecting bacon and eggs or cold meat you won’t be getting that.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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