What to expect when you travel from London City Airport (LCY)

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If you read all the marketing, you could be forgiven for thinking that London has more international airports than any other city on earth. Unfortunately, even though airports like Southend, Luton, and Stansted all have “London” in their name, they’re not really anywhere near London, and even Gatwick, an airport a lot of people think of as a London airport, sits miles outside the city’s limits.

Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, can justifiably call itself a London airport courtesy of its location in Hounslow (one of London’s outermost boroughs), but the only international commercial airport that’s really anywhere near the center of the city is one that most people have probably never visited – London City Airport.

London City Airport sits to the east of central London in the city’s Docklands.

With just 18 gates (I’m trusting Wikipedia for this) and a runway too small to take aircraft larger than an Embraer E195 or an Airbus A220, this is the smallest of all the London Airports, but it’s also probably the most liked.

The airport’s small runway means that it can only offer non-stop services to select destinations within Europe, but it’s the airport’s compact nature that gives it an advantage over all of the other airports in and around London.

Speeding through to the gates

Because it’s small, it takes very little time to get wherever you need to get to within City Airport and whether you arrive by car, train (Docklands Light Railway – DLR), or by bus, you’re never more than a 2-minute walk to the check-in desks (assuming you don’t have any mobility issues).

On my last visit to London City, I took the Underground (subway) out of central London, and connected to the DLR in east London, and found myself disembarking on a platform from which it took me less than 90 seconds to get to the departures/arrivals hall.

To help passengers speed through the airport, there is a row of self-service check-in machines just outside the departures/arrivals hall for travelers who don’t need any face-to-face time with an agent.

Once you have a boarding pass, you proceed up the central stairs/escalators you’ll find in the departure/arrivals hall (you can’t miss them!) …

… and to your right you’ll see the main barriers leading to the security lines (this is where you scan your boarding pass).

London City Airport has two of the newer-type baggage scanners which means that while you are still limited to carrying liquids in bottles that are no larger than 100ml/~4oz, you can keep all your toiletries in your bags and larger devices (such as laptops and tablets) can also stay packed away.

On my past three trips through City Airport, it hasn’t taken me longer than 9 minutes to get from the DLR platform to the other side of airport security (there were 15 people in the security line ahead of me on that trip), and given that once you’re through security even the furthest gate isn’t more than a 7 minute walk away (assuming no mobility issues), this makes the airport fantastic for those of us who like to minimize the amount of hanging around time we have to deal with and who would just want to “turn up and go”.

Amenities at London City Airport

Once you’re through security you’ll find yourself in the airport’s small shopping and dining area and this is where you’ll find 95% of everything on offer in the airport.

As you’d expect, there’s a “duty free” section where a lot of things aren’t any cheaper than anywhere else in London (although you may find some good deals on alcoholic drinks) …

… and there are a few cafés and eateries here too.

Two of the eateries (Juniper & Co. and Soul + Grain) are part of Priority Pass, so if you have a Priority Pass membership that gives you credit at Priority Pass restaurants, these can be a good place for you to grab a drink or some food before you fly.

As is the case with most airports, the food and drink outlets here are not exactly cheap, so for someone on a budget I’d recommend Boots (a CVS-style store) or WH Smith (a book/magazine store) both of which sell sandwiches and snacks.

Individually, the sandwiches and snacks sold in Boots and WH Smith aren’t great value, but if you buy one of their package deals (a “meal deal”) consisting of a sandwich, a snack and a drink, the savings can be significant.

At the time of writing, these meal deals cost £4.99/~$6.70 and £5.99/~$8.00 respectively.

I frequently pick up one of these meals to keep me going on whatever Economy Class flight I’m booked to fly as I’m rarely at City Airport long enough to enjoy a more substantial meal.

In among the shops and the eateries are City Airport’s main seating areas which look like this.

These areas can get a little crowded at busier times but, whether or not these areas are crowded, this is probably not where you should be sitting.

The “secret” to being comfortable and (hopefully) getting some peace and quiet at City Airport is to head away from the shops and the eateries and to take a seat at one of the many empty gate areas.

I’ve never failed to find a mostly deserted gate area when passing through City Airport (and I’ve traveled through here quite a lot in the past 20 years), so if anyone tells you that the airport is too crowded or that seating is an issue, they either got unbelievably unlucky or they made no effort to see what was available outside of the first area they walked into.

For some, a downside to London City Airport is that it doesn’t have any airline or 3rd party lounges (although there are two lounges at the private jet terminal a short drive away which you can pay to enter), but as this isn’t an airport at which you need to turn up hours ahead of time, as finding a quiet area at the airport isn’t difficult, as there’s good complimentary WiFi in most parts of the terminal, and as the seating areas come well equipped with USB-A ports as well as UK-style 3-pin AC power outlets …

… the lack of a lounge shouldn’t really bother most people. It has never bothered me and I love a good airport lounge 🙂

Lastly, I should mention that, for any AvGeeks out there, London City Airport can be a lot of fun. All the gate areas have huge windows overlooking the airport apron so you can watch aircraft landing, taking off and taxiing to your heart’s content.

You also get to walk out to your aircraft (no jet bridges here) and get a very close look at the engineering marvel that will deliver you to wherever your travels are taking you.

Bottom line

I genuinely look forward to traveling from London City every time I know that’s I’ll be flying from there. It’s a very easy airport to get to by car or by public transport, it usually takes no time at all to get from the curb to the gates, the views of the arriving and departing aircraft can be great and, overall, it just feels civilized.

If you’re used to dealing with major airports like Heathrow, JFK, LAX or Charles de Gaulle, London City Airport will probably feel like a breath of fresh air, and if you don’t make the mistake of treating it like any other international airport (i.e. as long as you don’t get there hours ahead of time and expect a luxury lounge to be at your disposal), passing through can give you a very small glimpse back to a time where travel wasn’t as chaotic, hectic, and stressful as it often is today. That’s why I love it and that’s why you should probably try it out the next time you have a chance.

Featured image is a screenshot from Google Maps.