Tuesday 24 April 2012


Once again, my penchant for selecting early flights resulted in my having to wake up quite early when everyone else in the dorm was fast asleep. As I walked across the timber floor, it creaked, and the heavy door between the dorm and the hall didn't make it easier to get out quietly. A quick freshen up in the bathroom then I got changed and packed, ready to go. Clickety-clop... my heavy roller luggage rolled across the dorm floor, then another sharp clack of the heavy dorm door closing... then I was on my way to reception. The friendly receptionist - a Romanian gentleman - was great to talk to. I'm not sure whether I'll manage to visit Romania one day as he recommended, but it did help me wake up a bit more in the morning.

Next step was to make my way to Swiss Cottage tube station. Luckily dragging my heavy luggage down the steps into the station is a lot more tolerable than the previous night when I had to drag the luggage up the stairs! A touch of my Oyster and down to the platform awaiting the Jubilee line service towards Stratford.

When the tube pulled up, I have to say it was interesting to step on with not many people on board. There were more people than you thought there would be at this time in the morning, but certainly not packed in like peak hour. Travel to Canning Town, then disembark and change for the Docklands Light Railway.


On the DLR platform at Canning Town waiting for the DLR.

At Canning Town, the DLR line splits, with one line going to Beckton, and the other going to Woolwich Arsenal, with London City Airport on the latter. The DLR was pretty frequent at this time in the morning, and why not - it was business hours (or close to it). So waiting no more than five minutes for a DLR was pretty normal.


DLR train arrives, bound for London City Airport and Woolwich Arsenal.

I arrived at LCY without a fuss, then it was down the stairs, touch off the Oyster and a short walk later, we were at the front of the terminal proper. It's a bit different arriving at LCY, as there is no big frontage welcoming you in.


Welcome sign into LCY.

Once through the main doors, the inside was pretty familiar to when I arrived here, as to the left is the arrivals services, and the right is check-in. There are the usual smattering of kiosks for those who want to expedite check-in, and then there are the counters for the others (including bag drop). I proceeded to the Lufthansa counter, where the attendant examined my rather interesting itinerary. I had timed the flights I had chosen so that I had a 22 hour or so "stop" (actually a transit) in FRA (which means it doesn't consume the stopover according to the US DM rules), which technically means I could've had my bag checked all the way to my final destination. However, I told the attendant to check my bag only to FRA, where I would claim it and re-check it again later. This was no fuss, and pretty soon I had my bag tagged to FRA and a BP in hand, so it was up the nearby escalators to security screening and into the airside concourse.


LCY check-in area.

LCY is not very big, yet it handles so many flights. It's almost like a big regional airport in a way. Suffice to say, the biggest advantage of LCY is simply the proximity to London City itself. That's probably all it has on it, apart from a small airport as well (i.e. none of the huge hubbub of Heathrow or Gatwick). All aircraft here are small ones - typically turboprops or Embraers, with a couple of Airbus thrown in.


Lots and lots of flights to get through this morning.

LCY has no elite lounge, so those of you usually accustomed to having a sanctuary away from the "common folk" with free food, booze and wireless internet will be slightly disappointed. (For BA's flights to JFK, they have specially outfitted the dedicated gates 23-24 into a BA lounge style, with complimentary refreshments). When you exit the security screening area into airside, you're greeted with a scene reminiscent of a mall food court. Sitting tables, and more sitting tables. There were cafes on one side, and on other sides there were the usual duty free and stationary / travel needs shops. When you sit at one of the sitting tables, a waiter will typically approach you with a menu if you want anything to eat. That's a pretty large waiting area.

Wireless internet is provided by London City Airport and is free of charge throughout the terminal. Connection speed wasn't too bad at all. If you have shoes that need a bit of buffing up, you can get that done for free too, though do keep in mind that there may be a line.

As you proceed further into the airside concourse, there are a couple more shops, another cafe and a small sit down restaurant, but almost every other available inch of space is taken up by seating. I managed to find a seat on a bench which looks out to the tarmac. There was a power socket nearby, which means I was all set.

There are (if I counted correctly) only two sets of toilets at airside LCY. I strongly recommend using the set which is farther inside the airside concourse (rather than the one closer to security screening), since it is much bigger and thus less waiting time (and bumping into people).


Sitting tables nearer to security screening. Pretty much all of here is waited table service.


Seating area further into the airside concourse.


Benches looking out to the tarmac, and a few couches around. You can also see the complimentary shoe shine service.

Working whilst watching planes land and take off, as well as seeing the tarmac ballet of planes pulling in then doing a half-turn to face out again (i.e. no need for tugs), was entertaining whilst checking and responding to email. A mother and daughter ended up sitting beside me, and I helped them out by looking up something on the internet for them. Turns out they were flying to Spain to meet a cruise, but their return flight would be on EasyJet to a more little known London airport, Southend. Not long after we finished conversing a bit, my flight was called for boarding.


Flight: Lufthansa Cityline LH929 London City Airport (LCY) - Frankfurt am Main (Flughafen Frankfurt am Main) (FRA T1)
Depart: Sched 0910h; Actual 0914h
Duration: 1 h 30 min
Distance: 386 mi (622 km)
Aircraft: D-AECA "Deidesheim" Embraer E190
Class: Business
Seat: 3A


The general boarding procedure at LCY is that many will remain in the main airside concourse until boarding for the flight is called. Upon hearing this, they will then proceed to the gate, where all pax are generally held in a small waiting area until they are all accounted for, after which either pax will be told to walk out to their aircraft or be bussed to it.

As I proceeded downstairs to the gate waiting area (which is visibly more Spartan than the rest of the terminal), there were quite a few pax there already as I was checked off, but we stayed in the waiting area for a while for some last few pax. Whether they were waiting on more pax or not, after a short while they closed the doors between the terminal and the waiting area, then we prepared to board the aircraft. Our LH aircraft was not too far away, so we will be walking right across the tarmac to it today.


Our aircraft to FRA.

Our flight was slightly more loaded than my flight from FRA to LCY a couple of weeks ago, but the Business section was still fairly empty. Announcements were quickly made as the aircraft was promptly closed up and readied for departure. Out of the parked position we went and to the runway, before tracking back all the way to the end and turning around for our take off.

LCY is a STOL airport, i.e. short take off and landing. How short can take off be? Very short... see the video.

@:-) Youtube VIDEO: LH929 takes off from LCY

Once we were up in the air and clear of London, the seat belt signs turned off and the crew sprang to action. Normally, if I were in Y, I'd probably be looking forward to one of Lufthansa's well-known cheese sandwiches (read: random kind of bread, random kind of cheese on it, random if you get anything else). In J, we all received a continental breakfast which was quite reasonable for a short flight IMO, though some would probably still complain that the lack of hot food is insufficient. There was a basic cold cuts plate with some cheese, another plate of some sort of yoghurt slice with muesli and fruit, a small muffin and a piece of Vollkornbrot, or rye bread, which can be a bit too strong (or bland) a taste for some (personally, I think it tastes not dissimilar to wet cardboard mixed with All Bran).


LH shorthaul Business breakfast for LCY-FRA. Very much European continental, but quite reasonable.

Landing in FRA was pretty standard; no messing around except for the very long taxi from runway to our parked position at a remote stand (pretty standard procedure for most shorthaul flights). Buses turned up and we were promptly shuttled to the terminal. Passport control was completed without a fuss; baggage reclaim, on the other hand, did take some time (as well as the fact that they were unloading about 3 flights worth of luggage onto our belt). Eventually bags started to emerge for our flight, and *A priority tagging seemed to work as my bag appeared among the first.