Originally Posted by
corporate-wage-slave
For views into London, it depends on the East or West approach, probably port side is best arriving into LCY, starboard for departure.
Funnily enough, I would have suggested the opposite!
If flying to the east of the airport, there is relatively little of interest to see, and nothing of central London. So it doesn't matter much.
If arriving from the west, a seat on the starboard side often gives great views of the Shard, London Bridge station, and the City to the north of the river if the aircraft joins the centreline from the south with a 180 degree right turn. The views from the port side are often less good, because they can disappear underneath the aircraft just as they get interesting, when the aircraft starts that right turn. I think that all of my AMS arrivals in this direction have turned onto final from the south, but obviously if you were to turn on from the north then the port side would be better.
If departing to the west, the port side gives you views of central London as the aircraft makes its first turn to the north (and as far as I have been able to see, this is the only standard departure route in this direction). You get better views of the ground from the starboard side, but the main thing of interest is the Olympic Park.
Originally Posted by
rcspeirs
The pilot won't know if it's an east or west approach until on final approach. It depends on wind direction - which can change during the day. You can make an educated guess of what the likely wind direction will be when you do OLCI - based on forecast - but because of localised "on-shore" wind effect the runway usage can and does change frequently on some days at LCY.
Although I think that they do know the direction a bit earlier than final approach, it's nevertheless disappointing when you depart to the east, and then a mere 2½ hours later find that you arrive back from the east, so that there were no views on either departure or arrival!