adrianlondon

The airlines could give lounge-entitled passengers a voucher for a few £ in one of the cafes. So long as they have to buy consumables so that it doesn't suffer the LHR T5C issue of people (not me *cough*) collecting coffee beans and mugs, I'm sure it'll work well.

squawk

I think this is where I sit as well: this is certainly a 'first world problem' (!) but given the buffer needed to get to LCY to account for delays with transport, and the fact that they're expanding anyhow, it would have been nice to have found space for a lounge. As @UKtravelbear notes, however, it is entirely possible that none of the airlines or independent operators have decided to do this (even if they'd been approached to do so).

One thing which did catch my eye is this recent piece including an interview with LCY's Chair - formerly the boss at Crossrail - in which he discusses adding an LCY station to Crossrail and an extension from Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet. It includes the following quote:

"The airport is changing. Historically it has served Canary Wharf and the City – the financial capital in particular – our catchment area is now growing and incorporating more of central London.“We’re keen to extend it to the south as well to Essex and to Kent and to create more of a mainstream airport serving all of London. So it makes a great deal of sense to be properly connected to the rail infrastructure get people to and from London City even more easily"

So they are certainly aware of the possibility of expanding their catchment away from the City/Docklands folk who are able to be there reliably at T-30.

Similarly there was an interview in April with the Chief Development Officer bemoaning the lack of a Crossrail station and looking at ways this could be addressed.

Irreverent Medusa

Same here The appeal of LCY for me, other than being a 10-15 minutes cab ride from my front door, is that it's compact and quick. The pinch point at the moment is security - there's been a few times when I was there at 06:15 for a 07:00 flight and the queue was going back to where you scan your BP... turned out they only had 1 lane open which is really not clever at what is rush hour there

UKtravelbear

Not sure if it is still the case but when I once flew LX LCY-ZRH-JFK They gave me a £5 voucher at check-in though I got the impression it was down to class of cabin rather than status. Was enough (then) for a muffin and a medium latte.

But given the number of elites at LCY it would soon get pretty expensive.

orbitmic

Basically, anything that challenges Heathrow's dominant position (and ideally anything that would challenge BA's dominant position and give more potential slots to competitors) is good for customers. It is a shame however that Crossrail won't stop at LCY.

steve170461

It will also be a ground-breaking change for ATC. There will not be a tower at the airport. Instead it will be a "digital Tower" located in Hampshire using high res cameras and high speed data feeds. There are a number of these around the world but all operating small numbers of flights per day. This will a first for an airport with in excess of 30 movements per hour at times.

allturnleft

UKtravelbear

Well since they got rid of one A318 that's not going to happen and even with a fuel stop in SNN there are few viable TATL routes for the baby bus.

They did have a lounge at LCY for the CWLCY service but LCY needed the gate space.

rcspeirs

origin

Luton has the same system now as well.

mad_rich

Amen to that!

When I first started flying from NCL, domestic flights had a ~30m walk from kerb to gate, with barely a foot off that line for check-in, WH Smith and the lounge! Sadly the current route, via upstairs, has more twists than an episode of Tales of the Unexpected, and now compulsory perfume and gin viewing.

UKtravelbear

They've been offering £50m for ages (not that £50m would buy very much) The issue was they couldn't make the case to have a station included in the Crossrail Act that authorised the initial construction.

Every time LCY have raised this issue TFL have responded 'come back with a feasibility study / business case and we will look at it' but LCY haven't got around to putting one together. Every stop on the line adds 1-2 minutes to the total journey time so you can see the reluctance to add any more stops to the route.

Though passive provision for a station has been made at / close to the old Silvertown station site for a possible future station but that would require some sort of transit system to get passengers to the airport. I really don't see the local residents liking shuttle buses running up and down between LCY and the Station all day. That's not such an issue from Custom House DLR because the route isn't through a residential area.

LCY would have preferred a station at the airport but that simply wasn't possible due to the Connaught Tunnel and the line being on a curve there which causes issues with train to platform gaps which would be considered excessive

dddc

I believe the quote was 50% leisure travellers now. But having travelled in LCY's early days, before I moved east, it was often the low cost choice for leisure travellers. I collected 12 or 20 tokens from a newspaper for a free Air UK flight to Amsterdam and back. That must have been 23 years ago. No taxes even! We had Dutch friends flying in to LCY as it was cheaper than other airports. I really think the swing to business travellers only came when the DLR came in, replacing the shuttle bus that ran from Liverpool St, Canary Wharf to the airport.

dddc

1) Two separate markets. If anything it makes it easier for some people to get to LCY too, with new access points. On routes that overlap, timing, price and points weigh in to see which is the best option. £20 more from LCY isn't worth the 2 hours extra to travel to/from LHR.

2) When LCY was built, much of the surrounding area was derelict or warehouses with some residential. Now it's like the old HKG airport with the towers around it. I've been to friends who live at the end of Western Dock and having a conversation on a summer evening is difficult with departures every few minutes. I don't think there are many 1st world airports with housing so close these days. People would have bought with the knowledge that a weekend curfew exists and would probably sue if it was changed.

skipness1E

No, no, no. There is immense overlap, look at the geography. I used to live on the Isle of Dogs and I know the area very well and used both airports, as well as Gatters frequently. BA have succesfully built a dominant position at LCY, allowing them to dictate to the market rather than vice-versa.
For example, one of the reasons BA brought the axed LCY-GLA back was that they cut back on LHR-GLA to free up slots for long haul (pre BMI buy out) as they can shift capacity between LHR and LCY, see also ORY being shifted out of LHR completely. But the catchment area of LCY going West finds it just as easy, if not easier to get to West London than Docks. It will be interesting to see just what the effect of the (now delayed) Crossrail has, as well as the ever-delayed third runway, but I can't imagine the impact will not be noticed.