London City airport could fly to Lagos and Mumbai, says chief
New jets and £350m investment extend airport’s horizons
London City airport will be able to offer flights to as far away as Lagos and Mumbai after a £350m investment, its chief executive has said.
Declan Collier said the investment, coupled with new aircraft, such as Bombardier’s C Series, Embraer’s E2 and the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, would open up routes beyond the single long-haul flight to New York, business class-only, that City currently provides.
Some of the jets will be able to handle the relatively short runway and steep descent at City while dramatically increasing the range of 1,000 or so nautical miles that is currently feasible.
“This new C Series will allow us to treble that distance,” Mr Collier said. “It opens up the possibility of direct flights into Istanbul, into Israel, into the Gulf, into Moscow, into Kazakhstan, that kind of distance.”
Aircraft with less dense business class-only seating plans can fly even farther because they are less heavy.
“In an all business-class configuration, they afford the opportunity to offer all business-class flights to Lagos and as far east as Mumbai and Delhi,” Mr Collier said.
The change in the nature of City’s business follows the airport’s sale a year ago for £2bn by a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners to three Canadian pension funds and the infrastructure arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority.
Between now and 2030, what we need to look at is the development of London City airport as being the only significant opportunity to add capacity into the London airport system
The funds pledged £350m in new investment in July when the airport won planning permission for an extended taxiway and new stands. The spending is intended to take the airport — the smallest of the five airports ringing London — from last year’s 80,000 air traffic movements annually to a new regulatory ceiling of 111,000. The number of annual passengers will grow from 4.5m last year to 6.5m by 2025.
Mr Collier said that the relatively short timetable for the airport’s expansion, which is due for completion by 2021, meant that City airport would be offering new flight capacity well before the planned third runway at Heathrow airport came into operation. Mr Collier said it was unlikely Heathrow expansion could be completed before 2030.
“Between now and 2030, what we need to look at is the development of London City airport as being the only significant opportunity to add capacity into the London airport system,” Mr Collier said.
City airport, which opened in 1987 in the former Royal Docks in east London, has grown quickly thanks to its proximity to key London destinations, particularly the financial district of Canary Wharf.
Such improved connectivity would remain critical as the UK endured the uncertainty of leaving the EU, Mr Collier went on.
“London isn’t going to disappear just because it steps out of Europe,” Mr Collier said. “We are an island and trading nation that, post-Brexit, is going to have to rely on its ability to be a better trader than anybody else to survive.”
Mr Collier stressed that he expected the UK to continue to have a close trading relationship with EU members after it left the bloc and that City airport would help to facilitate that.
The airport is due to announce on Tuesday that Terry Morgan, chairman of the Crossrail cross-London rail scheme, will also become chairman of City airport.
The airport is seeking to add a City airport station to the Canary Wharf to Abbey Wood stretch of Crossrail, which passes immediately underneath the airport. Such a station would open up the possibility of far better connections between City airport and Heathrow, one of the western termini for the project.