London City Airport (EGLC) will be able to increase its annual number of passengers from 6.5 million to 9 million. However, based on Monday's decision by the UK government to reverse an earlier local government block on the move, the change is unlikely to impact business aviation at the downtown airport since there will be no increase in aircraft movements.
The central government ruling followed a public inquiry into an earlier decision by the London Borough of Newham. It allows EGLC to operate three additional flights during the first 30 minutes of its daily operations during the week but did not agree to the airport’s request to extend Saturday operating hours up to 6:30 p.m.
The airport’s operating hours are 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on weekdays, 6:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, and 12:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Sundays. The final 30 minutes of operations can be used only for flights that were scheduled to arrive or depart earlier but were unavoidably delayed. Some 3.4 million passengers passed through the airport last year, down from the peak of 5.1 million passengers in 2019.
EGLC’s application was based on a commitment to allow only cleaner, quieter next-generation aircraft during any extended airport operating periods. It also agreed not to add any new infrastructure at the site, which is close to London’s financial district.