Photo: acme on Flickr using Creative Commons
I’m not dreaming: An airport where there are no lines at check-in, security takes just sixty good-humored seconds, the lounge is comfortable and uncrowded, the flight leaves exactly on time. Flying back in from Paris, the passport line moves fast, the bags are on the single carousel before I reach it. This is not some prairie backwater, it’s London. That London, of the four infamous chokepoints: Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. None of the above-this is London’s sweet little secret-London City Airport
You could, in fact, call it a boutique airport. It sits in the middle of what was once London’s docklands, only six miles from the financial district, called the City. That’s why it has been a big hit with business travelers, for whom it provides direct flights to many European cities, including Barcelona, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris. The big news is that from September 29 it gets a transatlantic connection-a new twice-daily British Airways service to JFK.
London City has only one runway, shorter than other major airports. Because of this, airplanes above a certain weight, needing a longer runway, cannot use it. This was not a problem for the routes to Europe, which are flown by airplanes designed for short runways. To make the transatlantic flights possible, BA has gambled that passengers bound for New York won’t mind making a pit stop for gas at Shannon, in Ireland. They are using a new version of the Airbus A318, (a truncated A320), specially adapted for airports like London City. Even then, it needs to pump gas in Ireland because with a full fuel load it would be too heavy to take off from London City.
Flying out of JFK provides no problem: by the time the A318 reaches London a large part of the gas has been burned and it’s light enough to land on the short strip. To sweeten the Irish stopover (which BA claims will take only 45 minutes) the westbound passengers will clear U.S. customs and immigration in Shannon and, therefore, be able to whip out of JFK without pause.
These flights are, however, aimed at businessmen with deep pockets. A round trip will be around $5,500. For that, you get a cabin with only 32 flatbed seats and the attentions of a cabin crew of three. Plus web surfing, email and mobile texting (but not voice) connection above 10,000 feet. It seems to me that what BA are trying to do is to recreate the exclusive club of fat cats who once used the supersonic Concorde, the “rocket” as they called it, between London and Manhattan. The rocket did the trip in under four hours; the westbound A318 will take around eight. As the lure, speed has been replaced by what is, in effect, the creature comforts of a largish corporate jet.
But you don’t need to join the fat cats club to enjoy the beauty of London City Airport. If you are using London as a base for European connections it can be a much smarter choice than Heathrow. Furthermore, it’s convenient for more than the financial district. Many of London’s hippest neighborhoods are nearby, with good lodgings among them.
Ironically these fat cats will be flying over the poorest people in the UK. For example the £5000 price for a ticket is 3 months average wage for the 96,000 families that live in Newham where the airport is based.
London City Airport has abused its position within the community. Claims of creating 1000 jobs through expansion were fabricated. No noise readings for 8 years , the highest asthma rates in the UK around the area.
The airport has brought nothing to Newham. Its sucks money from the community. The HIP areas you talk about are not around the airport - have a look when you land , the area is desolute and destitute.
Great service and a cool G&T in the clouds does not make up for the absolute enviromental damage these flights do to our area.