Following two years impacted by the COVID pandemic, 2022 heralded a return to growth with 3 million passengers choosing to fly to and from the central London hub.
Amsterdam, with up to 13 daily rotations per day with KLM and British Airways, was the busiest route, with 392,000 passengers flying between the two European capitals.
Domestically, Edinburgh remained the busiest LCY route, reaching over 302,000 passengers for the year.
2022 also saw new summer sun routes like San Sebastian, Barcelona and Thessaloniki added to the departure board as well as increased summer rotations to the Balearics and Greek Islands.
The airport, which avoided the queues and disruption seen at many other airports over the summer, saw its growth in leisure travel reflected in the top 5 busiest days being split across June and July, peaking on June 6th with 14,418 passengers.
LCY also continued to be the airport of choice for corporate travellers, with the latest CAA passenger statistics showing that the majority of passengers in September, October and November were flying on business.
The airport also scooped two Best UK airport honours last year, as well as being recognised by Which? as providing the quickest airport security experience.
And in 2023, LCY will look to further improve its market leading passenger proposition with every security lane being upgraded with the latest, state of the art, CT scanners by April. This will mean passengers no longer need to take their laptops or liquids out of their hand luggage.
In addition, ahead of what promises to be a busy summer, reaching close to 2019 levels, the airport will look to complete a £12 million transformation of its departure area, bringing new restaurants, an expanded Duty Free, more seats and new toilets, for passengers.
Looking ahead, the airport’s CEO, Robert Sinclair said:
“2022 proved how resilient we are as a business and just how much our passengers value the speed, convenience and consistently high levels of customer service which we offer at London City.
“In 2023, as people plan holidays or business trips, I believe the airport experience will be play an even bigger factor, and the good news for returning and first-time passengers is that we will be making flying through LCY even easier in the year ahead, with significant investments in security and in our departures area underway.
“LCY is an incredibly important strategic asset for London and in the year ahead we will be working closely with airlines to increase volumes, develop new, exciting routes and welcome more of the latest new generation aircraft, which operate to the highest of environmental standards.”
LCY’s first new route of 2023 will be Antwerp with Luxair which will commence from Monday, operating three times a week, upping to four from April.
