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AIRPORT PICKUPS LONDON

Could London City Airport Days Be Numbered
11 - Apr - 2014

Could London City Airport’s days be numbered?

 

 

A new report may have signed the death warrant for London City Airport.  The consensus of the report, published by the New Economics Foundation (NEF – an independent think tank), is that the airport provides little value to London and that it should close.  The airport occupies 500,000 sq metres of land in the centre of London; however, the report criticises the airport as “its direct contribution to the UK economy in 2011 was £110m – less than a fifth of the nearby ExCel Exhibition & Conference Centre.”

London City Airport is principally used by business travellers and caters for just 2.4% of London’s total flight capacity, which substantiates the report’s opinion and suggestion that the valuable land could be re-developed and provide new homes and space for businesses, thereby boosting the capital’s economy. 

However, whilst the argument for closing the airport are valid, the assertion that passengers could use Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick as alternatives, and, as NEF claim: “London City Airport places a significant environmental and social burden on neighbouring communities and gives back very little in return,” the airport argues their case.

A London City Airport spokesman said in return that the airport “provides a direct route to the capital’s business, financial and political centres, facilitating inward investment and economic growth.”  They report that should the airport close, 2,000 people would lose their jobs, drop the economy by £750m per annum, and reduce future job creation. 

But as CityJet wade in with their problem with the airport – because the airport’s runway is just 4,900ft long (the smallest in the country), their bigger aircraft are not able to use it, which means sometimes passengers are taken off flights during certain weather conditions to ensure the airplane is not too heavy to take off!  The airline claim that occurs on a “weekly or monthly basis, but not daily,” adding that whilst the airline has taken some measures to reduce the weight of their airplanes, such as lighter seating, when the situation occurs, it is the economy passengers that are off-loaded to make way for the premium passengers.

I suspect the jury is out on this one for a while; well, all the time there is no definite decision on additional runways at Heathrow or Gatwick!  But it does seem that the case against London City Airport remaining open long-term is steadily building.