London City Airport gets approval to increase passenger numbers

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has overruled Labour-run Newham council to partially approve London City Airport’s expansion plans.

The Government will allow the airport to increase annual passenger numbers from 6.5 million to 9 million, whilst maintaining the overall flight cap of 111,000 per year. At present the airport is nowhere near hitting either of these caps.

It has also received approval to add an extra three flights between 6:30am and 7am from Monday to Saturday, a 50% increase from the current limit of six.

However, the Government has rejected its application to operate flights on Saturday afternoons. London City Airport closes to all flights at 12:30pm, with no flights operating for a 24 hour period until 12:30pm on Sunday. This means local residents benefit from a full 24-hour period of quiet.

This will be very disappointing for the airport. Business travel remains depressed at London City versus pre-covid levels, and this is not helped by speedy new Elizabeth Line connections to Heathrow from East to West. The inability to operate a full service to leisure destinations on the busiest day of the week for holidaymakers is a blow.

Whilst the increased passenger cap sounds like a big jump, passenger numbers at London City Airport peaked in 2019 at 5.1 million people and 80,000 flights. Unlike other UK airports it is struggling to return to pre-pandemic figures with just 3.4 million passengers using the airport in 2023.

Whilst it now has approval to increase overall numbers, it’s unlikely to get anywhere near those levels for years – and it is debatable, given the Elizabeth Line opening and the decline of Canary Wharf as a business centre, whether it ever will.