Flybe has announced a major expansion at London City Airport.
The five-year deal will see new services by the airline to and from London City to Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, Inverness and Exeter. These start on October 27 and are on sale from today.
The deal will also see international routes added from London City, Flybe said, although these will be off-peak leisure flights to ski destinations, as well as regional French and northern Spanish destinations.
Details of these routes "will be announced in the coming weeks".
Flybe will deploy five "growth" aircraft for its LCY operation. These will be based at three of its regional bases and are expected to fly up to circa 500,000 passengers annually on a schedule that will see:
- Four times daily services from/to Edinburgh and Dublin
- Three times daily services from/to Belfast and Exeter
- Twice daily from/to Inverness.
Regional core services within the UK and from/to Ireland will be supplemented with flights between LCY and Edinburgh, Belfast City, Dublin, Inverness and Exeter.
The new comes after the announcement of expansion at Southend Airport (see news, April 3).
Flybe CEO Saad Hammad said: "Today's announcement is a significant landmark in the rebirth of Flybe. We are delighted to re-enter the London market at London's most convenient airport following a rigorous profitability analysis utilising our strict route assessment model."
Declan Collier, CEO of London City Airport, confirmed the importance of the arrival of Flybe at the airport.
He said: "London City Airport is poised for significant growth in the next ten years — growth that will see it achieve 120,000 flight movements per annum, with an associated six million passengers by 2023.
"Today's announcement is an extremely important step on that journey. Flybe will bring an immediate uplift of up to half a million new passengers to the airport.
"In addition, Flybe's selection of routes serves to cement further LCY's status as the business traveller's airport of choice, underpinned by our 'location, convenience and speed' customer propositions."
Tom Otley
