London City Airport 1990
 

No BA at the airport when this report was produced. Looks like London City Airways closed in 1990 the year this video was produced. I wonder if Michael Bishop (bmi chairman) knew this when he was doing the interviews. I wonder who filled in the gap when London City Airways closed?

It's amazing to think how busy it is now. The DLR was what it needed to get going. Riverbus would have been interesting but according to that video it's only once an hour. I started using LCY when I first started working in London (2003), no DLR then but the Jubilee line extension made a big difference as you could get a tube as far as Canning Town and a bus from there.

The National Rail option at the time was the North London Line (operated by Silverlink) to Silvertown which had been renamed Silvertown for London City Airport. That wasn't ideal because although it was close it involved a walk through a number of streets and the frequency of service wasn't very good.

Great video thanks for posting!

When was the DLR station completed?

The issue with LCY now is that it’s become so popular it’s lots a bit of it’s charm.

It opened towards the end of 2005.

To put this into context, the first part of the DLR opened in 1987, while Canary Wharf was a construction site.

Nice segment. Thanks for posting. I find it fascinating that the speech patterns of the anchorman on the news program itself and the presenter of this segment (as well as many of those interviewed) are so close to what seems like upper class 1950s Received Pronunciation. And this was only in 1991...

And to repeat mistakes: LCY is missing a Crossrail station. :(

BA still have crew with hair like the London City Airways checkin girl.

The Enya track “Storms In Africa” at 09:25 was used by Ansett Australia as its boarding music and in TV advertising.

The riverbus was more a gimmick than a viable transport option. The airport is on the docks, it's not on the Thames itself, so the service never ran directly to the airport. Services ran to a pier near Canning Town then you took a shuttle. The chief transport option were the dedicated buses (blue single deckers)running from Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf.
As for the lack of Crossrail station - the airport owners refused to contribute any funds so it isn't happening.

Thanks! very interesting. It's odd to think of London not being a global hub of commerce in 1990.

There's a reasonable history of airline comings and goings on the info boards around the main seating area at LCY IIRC. It's a reminder of how quickly it's all changed.

The buses from Liverpool Street were indeed the main way of getting to and from the airport (they later ran from Canning Town) and were entirely free. They really wanted you to get out there in those days...

Not only with Crossrail / the Brenda Line / whatever not call at LCY, none of the nearby stations will be within a direct rail link of the airport, either. Both Canary Wharf and Custom House are on different branches of the DLR to LCY, and Woolwich is a different station to Woolwich Arsenal. Oh well...

I wasn't around in London in the 90s, but do miss the airport's early 00s days, when I would cycle up to the terminal (oh yes), wander up to the check-in desk with 10 minutes to spare, they'd have your BP pre-printed and know your name (good old KLMuk as it was at the time) and you'd be through security and on the plane in a couple of minutes. Hard to imagine that now.

The buses weren't free at the end, they were significantly more than TfL services (I think the Liverpool Street one was over £5). When I was working in Bishopsgate and living near Canada Water I had tried the bus from Liverpool Street once and then thought if I was paying a premium I might as well pay not much more for a black cab.

If travelling from home I discovered that tube to Canning Town and then 69 bus (no longer runs to LCY but two other routes do) was better value than the dedicated shuttle they ran from there and was included in my Travelcard so didn't have to hunt down change for the non-TfL (so no Oyster) shuttle bus (I think the Canning Town one was cheaper at £4)