Yes. The runway is being resurfaced. I flew over LCY last night on the way back from OSL and you could see the Eastern end of the runway was black and western half looked much older light grey.

Swiss / Helvetic to operate a (very) seasonal route to Sion in Switzerland on 3 Saturdays in February 2017 - presumably for half term skiing

According to Business Traveller and other sources, BA is dropping the BA3/4 flights to JFK.


https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...lass-services/

The long-rumoured Bremen service by Sun Air is now confirmed, 10/7 w/e Oct 31. Bookable from tomorrow.

Bremen will be 10 weekly.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/ai...routes-bremen/


5 German destinations now served. I presume Munich must be next but would most likely need an Embraer.

Munich unfortunately didn't work for Lufthansa, whose second hub it is. I used it for onward connections to Eastern Europe where quick sub-30 minute connections were immaculately made by direct airside transfer car. If it didn't work out for the major airline with all that connection potential it seems unlikely it would do so for a separate operator.

It was actually notably quicker LCY-MUC-St Petersburg, despite a dogleg mileage, than going over to Heathrow and taking the nonstop BA flight.

LCY-BRE
 

Schedule is as follows:

BA8226 LCY 09:45 BRE 12:15 x67
BA8228 LCY 19:35 BRE 22:05 x67

BA8225 BRE 08:45 LCY 09:15 x67
BA8227 BRE 18:35 LCY 19:05 x67

All flights will be operated by a Sun-Air D328JET

Are there no arrival slots before 0915? A rather late departing morning flight, making it difficult for daytrips to Bremen.

Land at LCY at 0915. You can be pretty much anywhere in Canary Wharf, the City or the West End by 1000. Seems adequate for most day trips?

ELondonpax if you read VirginBlue's post he mentions daytrips to Bremen. In this case the flight arrives around 1215 and departs at 18:35. Not impossible but not great for a day trip.


However I remember being told before that something like 60% of pax at LCY were inbound from other European destinations so that would make sense to focus on the needs of the German daytripper coming to London rather than the other way around.

Sure. What I meant was that a, say, 0700 departure at BRE would result in a schedule like this - much better also for LON-originating pax:

BA8225 BRE 07:00 LCY 07:30 x67
BA8226 LCY 08:00 BRE 10:30 x67
BA8227 BRE 18:35 LCY 19:05 x67
BA8228 LCY 19:35 BRE 22:05 x67

Protestors (PlaneStupid) have closed the runway. They've used tripod scaffolding and handcuffs - like the LHR incident.

No flights in/out.

Standard Evening News online

This has meant diversions for incoming flights, 3 so far to SEN (WX, LH & LG) & BA002 to LGW.

God help these people if they ever to China.

Hope there will be legal penalties implied.

The protest group is 'Black Lives Matter' according to the BBC & up-dated ES.


Black Lives Matter protesters close London City Airport runway - BBC News


More diverts to SEN (SX & BE). Not yet clear if protestors have been removed from the runway.

How in the name of God could they get on the runaway of an airport in London?

Sail across from the docks apparently...

They swam apparently

Rather shocking that Plod didn't arrest them immediately, but chose to "negotiate".

Elephant in the room.
There's no perimeter fence because of safety concerns regarding proximity to the runway?

Otherwise it's baffling as access to aircraft at a critical time is wide open to the rowing club.
Not sarcasm, there's one right across the dock.

Me thinks that just like other airports keep a flock of birds of prey to keep the airfield safe, LCY needs to invest in some resident sharks.

There are always a number of Plod, brandishing semi-automatic weapons, mooching round the nice warm departures area. Perhaps they would be better deployed outside, patrolling the runway perimeter.

Having lived close to the airport site for probably longer than this individual has been alive, I can say that is absolutely not true.


Actually looking at the footage, they appear to have come across at the east end, where the University of East London is right across the dock.

In all the years flying in and out of LCY it always made me chuckle that the Mets finest never got out of the terminal building , but just posed ,trying to look tough at the escalator bottom or up on the old balcony area looking down on the masses ! Also why do the police given the guns always look gormless at LCY ? It's always the copper with the glasses or the overweight ones or the tiny little female with the gun, but hey they have the machine pistol so they must be the best of the best lol !!!!!!

Serious point, but I think The Met (the London police for those overseas) is going to come pretty badly out of this. Maybe not before time some of their procedures at LCY will come under review. The feeble reaction today, where most would have expected action within minutes, is an example where the senior officers have lost touch with reality. I feel I can say this because at our own house, well within earshot of LCY as regulars on this forum may know, a "classic" burglar at 2 am trying to come in through our upstairs bedroom windows was, following a 999 call, dealt with and apprehended in minutes by a couple of regular firm action Met coppers in absolutely exemplary manner. Thank goodness. Well Done Lads.

Meanwhile over at LCY someone felt that having the Armed Officers waltzing about the terminal with their fingers pawing on the triggers of their Koch machine guns was adequate defence. I presume they were sent out to the runway within moments of this incursion being announced. Did they even show their machine guns then ? Probably not.

A few years ago, writing about the "community day" and airshow organised at LCY one weekend, I finished up, on this very thread, with a comment on how the police handled themselves on this "meet the local public" day. You can read the penultimate paragraph here :

http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airpo...ml#post4225508

The boys with the guns don't have airside badges... 😅

A German message board suggests that BE will launch LCY-DUS, competing with BA. Anyone in the know if fact or fiction?

3 times a day (daily on weekends) bookable from 30th October

http://www.flybe.com/corporate/media/news/1609/13.htm

Smart move....


... not.

The DUS route will go up from 150 seats daily to 450 daily because BACF has just upgraded from the Saab to an Embraer.

Wonder why BE has not been a bit more creative and given CGN a try - which has two airlines serving STN, but none LGW, LTN or LCY.

Probably due to the fact that BE already serve DUS from BHX, MAN, CWL, SOU and DSA and have no operations into CGN. Coupled with the recent codeshare with Air Berlin, the biggest operator at DUS (I think?) it sounds like a sensible move on their part to me.

I'm not sure that relying on a codeshare with Air Berlin for more than a few months is a sensible move...

I've noticed that there is a Flybe (Blue Islands) ATR42 parked by the Jet Centre for the past couple of days. What's gone wrong with it? Have Blue Islands cancelled their flights or brought in another aircraft?

As a change from my constant Edinburghs or Dublins, we came to Palma on BA, Mrs WHBM :) and Little Miss WHBM joining the trip. Even an outward in mid-September was pretty much all seats taken.


Would never expect it at LCY but they were actually giving out little kids packs as you exited security. I have to tell whoever sourced these that the 8-part pencil has been a great hit in the Majorca hotel room ! But a curious theme in the colouring book "The Merfolk of Atlantis", all about cartoon characters and creatures from the depths of the ocean. Was there nothing with an aviation theme available ?

And we're back ...

Loading the family and baggage into a black cab at the airport for what is a just under £10 journey to our nearby home brought the usual string of near-expletives from the cabbie. "*&^%$£ mate, WHERE ? I've been queued here for over 2 flippin' hours". etc etc. Now I know that everyone on the rank thinks they are going to get at least a Heathrow, if not a Cambridge, every trip, but this has been a longstanding issue at the LCY rank for local trips which the airport must surely give some consideration to. A "black cabs are TfL, so nuffin' to do with us" approach is little different from that cabbie's. For some this sort of reception can be more than a little threatening.

As I understand it, at Friday midday there are a fair number of cab jobs for returning Europeans from The City etc into LCY for departing pax, but not so much inbound trade (although the rank seemed to be moving along, we had to step to the 4th cab in line while those ahead also loaded). Can LCY do something to limit the length of the cab queue so the drivers stand a chance of getting a trip within say 15 minutes, or have to go back out to Canary Wharf etc.

Swiss seem to be moving their (very) seasonal route to Sion in Switzerland from City to Heathrow, presumably because of the weekend curfew at City

For New York trips, I often fly into LGA and stay in Long Island City. Same issue there as it is a fairly short ride. As far as I understand the solution to the problem, cabbies at LGA get a note from a supervisor that allows them to jump the queue upon return if they have to accept a trip that does not exceed a defined distance from the airport.

Am hearing rumblings of BA putting the second A318 onto London City-Moscow from early next year, after its removal from the second daily LCY-JFK.

And where would the tech stop be for this flight? Is there such a great market for a business class between London and Moscow it can do better than a second daily NYC?

Would it need a tech stop?

I don't know about tech stop but business demand to Russia in recent years has been high.


BA changed the Moscow route to a long haul route and introduced first class. Aeroflot also use A330's on the LHR route and have announced an A320 service to Gatwick.