If LHR expansion means BA move some flights out of LCY, that's good news. The carriers waiting to fly in to LCY can finally get some decent slots maybe...
Which "carriers waiting to fly into LCY" would those be? I know the airport likes to claim that there's some huge demand out there by other airlines... but I don't see it. When a small carrier like Blue Islands can come along and promptly get well-timed am and pm slots, that just confirms for me that slot availability is not the dominant dissuasive factor for new LCY entrants. The issue is getting enough high-yield passengers to justify the sky-high (and climbing further) LCY charges. And those charges are there because GIP wants to be able to show an attractive aeronautical revenue forecast as part of the sale memorandum. For the moment, the big LCY carriers have been gritting their teeth and accepting this, but sooner or later, someone's going to give up.
mikkie - from Canary Wharf or (even worse) Broadgate, it takes quite a while to reach Southend. There would have to be a very good reason to go to Southend instead of Gatwick ot Heathrow with their greater choice of flights.
The Southend connection to Broadgate/City of London is pretty good with regular train connections to Liverpool Street from the doorstep of the new terminal, train service is sub 1 hour usually - and without the faff of trying to get out from the larger airports, that makes it a very competitive offering to get to "The City".
LCY's owners (Qatari money managed by Credit Suisse and GE Capital) bought it as a template to learn aero-infrastructure. That done, LGW acquired, more opportunites pending (?STN), time to unload. Nothing bad about LCY, just small beer. Any future buyer will not expect profit growth (not much scope for capacity or yield increase), but steadiness. The Oz Macquarie team seem to like that.
London City Airport can confirm that all departures and arrivals have been suspended as of 13.54 due to a suspect package being found in the Airport’s vicinity.
Airport officials are currently managing the situation alongside the appropriate authorities and emergency services.
Passengers are advised to contact their airline regarding the status of their flight.
these sort of routes tend to be regarded as marginal midday/weekend operations that are used as fill-ins between the morning and evening peaks. But when we travelled BA to Palma last summer it was an 0700 departure from LCY, and the Ibiza flight was also leaving alongside.
Friday first wave had leisure departures to the sun as it's a quiet for business out of London City, Friday afternoon saw a return to the weekday schedule.
Basle was only suspended on transfer to Heathrow back in March-2011, so to call it a new route is spin. LHR-BSL remains for the summer, still operated by BMI.
In other news, London City has a new website. The old one was straightforward and user friendly, the new one is....well you'all remember when BMI did the black gig with the "Heathrow's Second Favourite Airline" tag. Yeah, it's that bad !
Firstly, after me hammering away for years here about how the LCY arrival information airbrushed all flights off the board a few moments after they were due to land, I see they now show data for a couple of hours beforehand. So at last we can look and see why our vsitor hasn't shown up at Canary Wharf without visiting Flightstats. Good.
Regarding the overall website, however, as one who has built web-based systems for years, what a shambles. Whoever came up with those Style Sheets (the format of the pages) and that way f showing information ? A classic example of ruining something that previously worked OK. Was it done in the USA ? There are US spellings (eg "catalog") all around.
Yes - that new website is a bit of a poor show....
On the destinations page, they show "destiinations by country". Apparently Jersey and the Isle of Man are part of England now. I can see that going down with residents of those respective islands!
I really cannot believe anyone would support having this bunch of self-appointed anti-aviation timewasters and troublemakers from HACAN somehow worm ther way to any part of the airport hierarchy. However did this even get suggested ? Anyone know the outcome ?
Could someone point out to them that H in their own title stands for Heathrow. Our friends over there already have enough difficulty dealing with them.
Is it correct that the chairman of HACAN lives at Clapham? If so he/she is much nearer LCY than LHR!
Is it the case that a representative of HACAN recently went to New York (via LHR and AMS) to lecture the Americans about opposing airport expansion and was refused entry by border control at JFK on the grounds that they have enough anti-airport groups of their own?
