London City Airport is a single-runway airport. It principally serves the financial district of London and is located on a former Docklands site, 6 NM (11 km; 6.9 mi) east of the City of London, opposite the London Regatta Centre, in the London Borough of Newham in east London. It was developed by the engineering company Mowlem in 1986/87. In 2010 London City was the fifth busiest airport in terms of passengers and aircraft movements serving the London area after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton and the 14th busiest in the UK.
London City Airport has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P728) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flight training. Only multi-engine, fixed-wing aircraft with special aircraft and aircrew certification to fly 5.5 degree approaches are allowed to conduct operations at London City Airport.
The airport has produced a master plan outlining their vision for growth up to 2030. The plan shows an expansion of the airport to a maximum capacity of 8 million passengers per annum, without the addition of a second runway, or significant expansion of the airport boundaries.
London City Airport was purchased from the Irish businessman Dermot Desmond, in October 2006 by a consortium comprising AIG Financial Products Corp. and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). In the final quarter of 2008 GIP increased its stake in the airport to 75%, the remaining 25% belongs to Highstar Capital.[5] In 2010, London City Airport served nearly 2.8 million passengers, a 0.6% reduction compared with 2009.
The airport has stringent rules imposed to limit the noise impact from aircraft operations. This, together with the physical dimensions of the 1,508 m (4,948 ft) long runway and the steep glideslope, limits the aircraft types that can use London City Airport.
Mid-range airliners seen at London City include the ATR 42 (both -300 and -500 variants), ATR72, Airbus A318, DHC Dash 8, BAe 146, Dornier 328, Embraer ERJ 135, Embraer 170,[12] Embraer 190 and Fokker 50. On 30 January 2009, trials were completed successfully with the ATR72-500, leading to its approval for use at the airport. The Embraer 190SR underwent trials from 28 March 2009, and thereafter gained approval. The Fokker F70, BAe Jetstream 41, Saab 340 and Saab 2000 also have approval for scheduled operations at the airport.
Corporate aircraft such as the Beechcraft Super King Air, Cessna CitationJet series, Hawker 400, Hawker 800, Piaggio Avanti and variants of the Dassault Falcon business jets are increasingly common. Helicopters are denied access for environmental reasons.
The size and layout of the airport and overall complexity caused by the lack of taxiways mean that the airport gets very busy during peak hours. The air traffic controllers have to deal with over 38 flights an hour on a runway requiring a lengthy backtrack for each aircraft needing to depart from runway 27 or land on runway 9.
Operations are restricted to 06:30 to 22:00 Monday to Friday, 06:30 to 12:30 on Saturdays and 12:30 to 22:00 on Sundays. The closure of the airport between 12.30 on Saturday and 12.30 on Sunday gives residents some relief from noise.
The size of the airport, constrained by the water-filled Royal Albert and King George V docks to the north and south respectively, means that there are no covered maintenance facilities for aircraft.
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