London City – losing its gloss???

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 40 total)

  • TominScotland
    Participant

    I flew Dublin – London City – JFK today on a really good value redemption deal. I have always wanted to fly on BA001 and the actual flight via Shannon did not disappoint in any way.

    LCY, however, was having a very bad hair day. Our flight from Dublin landed on time but was then parked 9in two places) for over 30 minutes. When at last we were permitted to leave the aircraft, we were bussed all of 100 meters to the Terminal – OK, for safety reasons. Result, landing to terminal = 40 minutes. Fine.

    Back out through arrivals and upstairs to departures and an almighty queue, half way down the stairs. It snaked slowly forward until we reached security – just one conveyor operating at 08.45 on a Wednesday. I challenged the supervisor – “we are short staffed today”…….. God help anyone believing their advertised short check in times….

    Not really good enough on either count, LCY. I will think twice about routing that way in future – but then BA001 WAS great – only 16 pax aboard, charming US officials at Shannon, excellent food and engaged service aboard, absolutely stunning views of the Irish coast as we said goodbye to Europe….. In JFK, 25 minutes from aircraft landing to taxi including luggage pick up.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    Glad you enjoyed the 001 experience. Coming back is even better as there is no stop needed. My only negative observation is the sometimes, heavy footed cabin crew walking up and down the aisle during service. The carpet and padding is thinner, to save weight and you notice it.

    Your comment “today we are short staffed” is a now all too frequently used excuse. Security and border control are now more important than ever and I hope more financial resource is allocated to the airports so the passenger experience can be smoother.


    SimonS1
    Participant

    Let’s hope so. Perhaps now Osborne has been fired we will see some investment, not just austerity and cost cutting.


    openfly
    Participant

    For me LCY has never had any gloss, or ever had an attraction. It’s impossible to slip through in 15 minutes, the departure area is a disgrace. No room for a lounge…masses of room for shops. Queues for security, endless. Long queues at arrivals Border Agency, long delays for baggage.
    Yup, LCY is an unpleasant experience….always has been.


    MarcusGB
    Participant

    There is no doubt that it has, and over a long consistent period of time!

    I flew out on Sunday, and it was more of a Charter flight ” feel about it. BA were running flights to Malaga, Ibiza, Tenerife, and the airport was full of unghappy lost families, who had no where to sit together. No space to walk or sit, and overpriced inappropriate retail has been jammed in to raise revenue, no one uses.
    Since the new Abu Dhabi consortium have taken it over, even more pointless retail space has been jammed in the Airside area, when there are not enough seating for passengers.
    People were just standing around, with an Empty “Corner” labelled Dixons, a premier luggage facility where there was also no one, along where used to be a corridor and needed seating. One restaurant is way overpriced, and takes up much area near the 22+ gates, and is empty most of the day.

    Greed has come in, despite the building of more space for departures, and seating for more than 30 on 100 seater flights.

    Returning yesterday, there were clearly too many planes for the airport to cope, it is a mess trying to take off and taxi down the runways with incoming flights. Baggage took 25 minutes when we were the only plane landing in a 15 minutes slot.
    Lots of BA flights were delayed by 1-4 hours!
    Through Immigration where the new gates do work well, and better than LHR by far for some reason.
    The toilets in the male section, one was closed due to disrepair, and 4 others were in an absolutely filthy state, urine and other excrement on the floor and i simply walked out. I would not even want to wash my hands in there. The most disgusting state of any European toilets i have ever seen.

    You need at LEAST one hour to depart if not two at times plus your commute, there is no way with as i counted on Sunday and a weekday two weeks ago, 300 people queuing to check in. Staff numbers have been drastically reduced.. Morale amongst them is very low, and the ethnic mix has clearly changed, as one employee i talked to i have known for some years indicated.

    With expansion stopped by the former Mayor (an electrocnic poster from the CEO stating that “Due to Political difficulties”…expansion limited), apart from having to backtrack on the charge to drop off or pick up, there is far too much congestion Airside, the runway looks in a very poor state as do the taxi ways, and grass areas, burnt away.
    Clearly it is being used as a Cash Cow.

    Sooner in this state, there will be an accident as there are too many flights, not enough gates, runway and no taxiway restrictions, and too many people in a very small area waiting to fly.
    Even during the week, it is more a leisure airport, with de-motivated short staffing, even to the point where carry on baggage is not checked and also is causing delays on Board.

    I had the misfortune of having to fly Cityjet under a KLM codeshare, the 23yr+ old Avrao 86=5’s, where yet again the state of the windows inside were filthy.
    You would need a nail brush and ant bacterial gel to scrape the bacteria and viral content, that never gets addressed. It is a properly concerning Health Hazard.
    Be very interesting to see with a swab, what came off, as there would be an enormous risk of infection.
    Truly also, disgusting.

    This is where LCY is now.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    Maybe if people weren’t taking unecessary journeys, airports would not be so busy?

    On Saturday, I could fly from Manchester to Dublin and then fly via Heathrow to Dubai.

    But I am flying direct from Manchester to Dubai.

    Tom could have flown direct from Edinburgh with either AA or Delta.

    So Tom, sorry no sympathy from me – if you had missed your flight, you would have been reaccomodated and you must accept the risk of a misconnect on such an itinerary.


    penfold69
    Participant

    FDOS, if BA flew direct from MAN to your destination, but it was a lot more expensive than travelling through LON/EDI/DUB or whatever other airport, would you still fly direct or consider using another route? Would there be a price cap that would drive you towards another route? Not trying to antagonise, just interested.
    People choose to fly different routes for different reasons, but the fact that you can only fit so many people onto each plane, and the airport allows each plane to land, then you would think it is safe to assume that there is room in the terminal for the maximum number of people that can board those planes. Including the services needed to check them in and pass security.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    [quote quote=701812]FDOS, if BA flew direct from MAN to your destination, but it was a lot more expensive than travelling through LON/EDI/DUB or whatever other airport, would you still fly direct or consider using another route? Would there be a price cap that would drive you towards another route? Not trying to antagonise, just interested.
    People choose to fly different routes for different reasons, but the fact that you can only fit so many people onto each plane, and the airport allows each plane to land, then you would think it is safe to assume that there is room in the terminal for the maximum number of people that can board those planes. Including the services needed to check them in and pass security.

    [/quote]

    My point is, Penfold, that if I flew indirectly to save money, I’d take on the chin this sort of problem and not whinge about it.

    The OP was not denied access to the airport or boarding, he just encountered a lumpy connection, which is perhaps not surprising as London City is not an airport that specialises in providing airside connections.


    Window-seat
    Participant

    I agree that good days of City are behind. I used to use it regularly 10 years ago because it was so empty. You could always sit down with a coffee in the early origins. Now is it is crammed full early in the morning with a lot of sad looking people. Back to Heathrow for me.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    I tend to use LCY as an arrival point – its still far easier, cheaper and quicker to get into the city than Heathrow.

    Would not tend to use LCY as a departure airport though for the reasons mentioned.

    With regards to passengers taking unnecessary flights, I would argue that if a flight is part of a ticketed routing, it is necessary, irrespective of whether you could have gone direct for double the cost…


    SimonS1
    Participant

    LCY isn’t really designed for connecting passengers, not that this is any excuse really.

    I must say I find the place a total dump really. What started off as a great model many years ago has expanded way beyond that point and there are now far too many people for the infrastructure available, and thanks to the actions of the previous mayor it doesn’t like changing any time soon.


    KeaneJohn
    Participant

    I live 20 minutes from LCY and use it from time to time. I have used it to fly to Frankfurt and on to Dubai and did enjoy leaving home 75 minutes before take off. Best of all is walking in the door within 30 minutes of landing. For the reasons of crowding and overpriced food/drink I tend to use it now mostly for arrivals. That said later this year I am doing a same day return to Glasgow and a same day return to Dublin followed by a trip on BA001 the following day, Living so close to the airport and not wanting to risk a misconnection elated to fly back from Dublin the night before. I’ve always found luggage delivery to be pretty good especially coming in on the morning flight from Frankfurt as it’s mostly business people with hand luggage.

    It serves it’s purpose for me and I am looking forward to my BA001 experience but prefer Heathrow most of the time.


    seasonedtraveller
    Participant

    I’ve used LCY several times, mainly on the BA service to JFK which I think is an excellent service (although no longer giving 240 tier points as it used to).
    Edited to add – I wonder if BA are having some ‘issues’ with the LCY/JFK service – last 2 occasions I’ve been at JFK, the later of the 2 LCY flights has been cancelled?

    In June this year, because of being in London for a gig at the 02, I used LCY to fly to Billund on a very busy Monday morning (normally fly from MAN).

    It was utter chaos.

    Thankfully, I had only hand luggage & I arrived early. It took me 50 mins to get through security & when I finally emerged into the waiting area, it was like a scene from a refugee camp….. Nowhere to sit whatsoever (although of course, ignorant & stupid people had their luggage on seats), I was met with an icy glare for daring to ask a suited gent to kindly remove his laptop bag so that I could sit down.

    Whilst I won’t say “never again”, the experience has left a bitter taste and I will be in no hurry to repeat.


    openfly
    Participant

    @SimonS1 A perfect discription “Dump”!

    Maybe rename it London Dump Airport…..the message might then get through to its new money-grabbing owners!


    TominScotland
    Participant

    FDOS, I think you miss the point of my post. I could have flown direct from Glasgow to Newark, I am very aware if that. I would have missed pre-clearance at Shannon, of course!! I was not winging about poor connections, I was pointing out two aspects of very poor service which were of concern for connecting, terminating or originating passengers alike. Is it acceptable to wait 40 minutes between landing and arriving in the terminal in a small airport like LCY? No, I don’t think so!! Is it acceptable to have just one security conveyor operating at peak time? No I don’t think so.

    That was my point, nothing to do with my connection. Indeed, LCY does not really cater for connecting flights – there was no signing at all for Flight Connections the route we went. I chose to fly this route for the fun of it, because I have long wanted to try it and because it was on offer at a silly Avios/ £ price.

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