In this excerpt from our online guide to London City airport, Michelle Mannion reports on how the Docklands facility plans to keep growing post-recession. To download the guide in full, click here.
The economic crisis wasn’t a good time for anyone in the aviation industry – so imagine what it was like for a niche airport serving the business and financial services population of the City and Docklands.
“We had a particularly difficult 2009,” says Richard Gooding, chief executive of London City airport. “We were running at about 14 per cent down on the previous year in terms of passenger numbers. It was the business community and, in particular, the financial services community that hit us hard.”
Thankfully, things are picking up. “We’re currently looking like we’ll recover about half of that this year – we should have handled 2.9 million passengers by year end, and I would expect to get the rest of it back next year,” Gooding says. “We’re cautiously optimistic that there’s some signs of global recovery in financial services, in which case we should see a return to stable growth before too long.”
To keep it on the road to recovery, the airport is upgrading its facilities to be ready for when passengers return. Some £7 million is being invested in putting an extra floor into the terminal building, providing a further 400 sqm of space (for a walk-through video of how the completed terminal will look, visit lcy.co.uk/downloads/flythroughvideos.zip). “We’re anticipating growth returning and we want to be ready for it, so we are doing the building work upfront of the demand so that less people are affected,” Gooding says.
The number of security lanes is being doubled from four to eight and the departure lounge is being expanded. The floor has now been put in and is being fitted out, with the project to be completed in January. Most of the work is being done out of hours to minimise disruption – the airport is closed weekdays from 9.45pm to 5.15am and from 12.40pm on Saturdays to 11am on Sundays.
“Security is the only part of the airport that the regular passenger now touches,” Gooding says. “They’ve checked themselves in before they arrive, are travelling with hand luggage only and they know their way through the airport. But there’s this one dominant transaction in the middle, so we wanted to do it right, and make sure it was swift because that’s what the core LCY passenger comes here for – to get here easily and pass through the facilities quickly.”
After security procedures were tightened last Christmas, this was an area the airport was struggling with. “We were not operating at the through-put rates that we would have been happy with, which was causing some queuing – and you don’t do queuing at LCY,” Gooding says. To combat this, it put in two temporary lanes in February, to be replaced by the permanent ones.
“That has enabled us to get the queuing process down to an average of three minutes. We’re achieving that at the moment but as we grow, we’ve got to make sure we keep in line with it,” Gooding says.
The departure lounge is also receiving a revamp, with further seating, dining and retail outlets. “There’s been a gradual switch over the past five to ten years – we used to have lots of landside facilities but passengers don’t want that now as they are spending less time in the check-in area, so we need to concentrate the space allocation on airside,” Gooding explains.
There are no details yet on what kind of shops will be added, but he says: “We’re looking to be more specialist and niche rather than selling 200 Marlboro and a bottle of whisky. Our jewellery outlet [Gassan, which opened nearly two years ago] has exceeded our expectations and that might give a clue to the sort of direction we might go in.”
Making sure the departure area is fit for purpose is vital because London City doesn’t have individual airline lounges. “Our approach is to make it a bit like a business class lounge anyway,” Gooding says. “So you’ve got comfy seats and somewhere to plug your laptop in – the only difference is you pay for a drink, but some airlines give you a voucher for a free one.” Complimentary wifi is also available.
In the next 20 years, LCY estimates that it can develop its facilities to handle about eight million passengers a year, and in 2008 it was granted approval to move from 80,000 to 120,000 movements (take-offs and landings) a year. To handle those extra numbers, its plan is not to do anything overly ambitious such as extend its 1,508-metre long runway – which would allow it to increase its current maximum flight length of about two and a half to three hours, but which would be “wildly impractical” in terms of space and economics, Gooding says. Instead, it will add aircraft stands incrementally, in line with demand.
It also intends to keep doing what it is good at – serving London’s business travel community. Some 60 per cent of the airport’s customers are travelling on business, rising to 90 per cent at peak times, and they rate the hub for its speedy processing times on departure and arrival. London City says that if you are travelling with hand luggage only – as about half of its passengers do – and arrive 15 minutes before departure, you will get your flight (20-25 minutes with checked bags), while on your return you can go from plane to taxi in five minutes (15 minutes with checked bags).
“[The plan is to] stay in our market niche as a primarily business travel airport,” Gooding says. “We are not equipped for larger aeroplanes – the airport is built around 100-seat aircraft – or for the needs of a low-cost leisure market. We’re built around the idea of getting people through quickly and being close to the centre of London – we save people time. That’s the plan going forward because we think there is a part of the market that wants to buy that.”
He adds: “We’ve squeezed in to provide this fast connectivity to people, and that inevitably means some compromise. We have to fly a steep approach [5.5 degrees compared with three degrees] to miss the buildings [of Canary Wharf], we have to stop on a short runway and get the aircraft off quickly and park them somewhere. It’s pretty basic stuff but our plan is to keep doing that – not to be especially creative and innovative, but just to be routine and thorough and nice, those sorts of words that people tend to forget about.”
Still, that isn’t stopping London City from spreading its wings – last September saw the launch of its first transatlantic route, British Airways’ all-business service to New York JFK. Operated on A318 aircraft with 32 fully-flat beds, the double-daily flights require a refuelling stop at Shannon airport. (See businesstraveller.com/tried-and-tested for a review.)
“It has operated brilliantly for the first year with passenger loads of 75 per cent, which is pretty good given it was a rotten year,” Gooding says. “The stop in Shannon has become a huge success because it takes only 25 minutes and you’ve cleared US customs and immigration, so when you get to New York it’s only five minutes from plane to taxi [if you are travelling light].”
Mike Doyle, customer experience product manager at British Airways, says: “It has received some great reviews from those who use it – it’s flying from the heart of London City into JFK, city to city, and is very popular with our business travellers. They like the location, the 15-minute check-in time and the dedicated check-in facilities with fast-track access to the lounge gate area. They also love the aircraft interior, which has a private jet feel, and the personal service.”
So might greater frequency or further routes be on the cards? Gooding says: “I know BA is looking carefully at what it will do next. I’m sure it’s looking at East Coast US [services would be restricted to that side of the US because of aircraft range].” BA chief executive Willie Walsh told June’s Business Travel Market in London that the airline may consider Boston, Washington and Chicago, but for now Doyle says: “We haven’t got to the point where we want to expand the frequency from LCY to JFK, but there have for some time been aspirations to utilise some alternative destinations in the US.”
London City also made the most of the summer lull in business travel this year by running services to Spain’s Palma and Ibiza (operated by BA’s Cityflyer) and France’s Brive and Deauville (by Air France-owned Cityjet) between May and October. “In August, our business normally declines by about 15 per cent compared with a peak month, and this is a good way of using that spare capacity,” Gooding says.
Luke Hayhoe, commercial manager of BA Cityflyer, confirms that the subsidiary will repeat the Spanish services next year. “They will start again at the end of March, which is a good six weeks or so earlier than this year,” he says. “They have proven very popular – we increased the number of flights in July and August to reflect the demand, and passenger loads have been in excess of 80 per cent.”
The airport also offers ski routes in winter – Cityflyer operates a seasonal service to Geneva, and recently announced new four-times weekly flights to Chambéry in the French Alps from December 18 until the end of March. Last month, BA added another Cityflyer route – a double-daily weekday service to Copenhagen, its first Scandinavian route from LCY. Hayhoe says: “There’s a growing demand for Scandinavia. In Denmark, particularly, the economy seems to be doing slightly better and the passenger volumes between London and Copenhagen are starting to grow.”
This expansion of the network is being made possible by the carrier’s new fleet of Embraer 170 and 190 aircraft. It has taken delivery of ten jets over the past year, replacing its ageing Avro RJ fleet, with one more to come next month. All Cityflyer services are now plied with the new aircraft, the last Avro flight having taken place in July.
“Embraer is providing us with the second generation of aircraft,” Gooding says. “They’ve been designed with the capabilities to serve airports like ours, where the flying arrangements are not typical.” They join the Bombardier Q400 and A318 aircraft, which have also come into service at LCY in the past couple of years.
All these aircraft are going down well with customers, he says. “They are configured 2-2 rather than 3-3 and have slightly wider seats – people love them.” Hayhoe adds that the Embraers are more eco-friendly: “If you compare the 170 to the RJ100 on a route such as Madrid, you’re looking at close to a 50 per cent reduction in fuel burn.” Lufthansa and Baboo have also introduced Embraer planes at LCY. (For more on Embraer see “Joining the jet set”, businesstraveller.com/archive/2009/december-2008-january-2009.)
The extended range of the new jets also opens up fresh possibilities. “The Embraer fleet brings eastern Europe into range, and we’ll see more southern European routes as well,” Gooding says. “We’ve got Madrid already and I think that will develop especially as the BA/Iberia relationship blossoms.” Hayhoe says BA is also looking at other destinations in Scandinavia, Germany and Italy – which will mean even more opportunities to experience London City airport’s speedy service.
For our complete online guide to London City airport, including information on getting there, parking, dining and nearby hotels, visit businesstraveller.com/london-city.
Which airlines fly where?
- Aer Arann – Isle of Man
- Air One/Alitalia – Milan Linate
- Baboo – Geneva
- British Airways/Cityflyer – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Chambéry (seasonal), Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Geneva (seasonal) Glasgow, Ibiza (seasonal), Madrid, New York JFK, Nice, Palma (seasonal), Zurich
- Cityjet – Amsterdam, Antwerp, Dublin, Dundee, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Geneva, Jersey, Luxembourg, Nantes, Paris Orly, Rotterdam
- KLM – Amsterdam
- Lufthansa – Frankfurt, Munich
- Luxair – Luxembourg
- SAS – Copenhagen
- Sunair (operating as BA) – Billund
- Swiss – Basel, Geneva, Zurich
