London City – Brilliant Airport

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Sorry for the delay in replying. Keenair have gone very quiet, no one seems to know what they are now planning. Will let you all know as and when something develops. I flew on VLM’s service recently and found it very good, particularly for the price, not sure how they will make it pay with only 50 seats !

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Thanks for that Comet.I’ve had family who have travelled them before but didn’t give me much info on them.Seem like a good little airline, they have a few services to Europe from here in GCI,I would love to see them expand here maybe on the LCY route!Love to travel them one day.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

I’m now back from my holiday – absolutely BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!! My return flight into London City was fun, and the approach involved hell of alot of tight turns (just typical that I was at the wrong side – the right had the best view and the left saw mostly sky on the approach). It was my first international flight on the Fokker 50, though I’ve flown on the type on Icelandic domestic flights.
Saab – VLM are a great airline. Their turn around time is alot faster than major airlines, we were called through at LCY before our aircraft had touched down and within 10 minutes of landing we were aboard and less than half an hour after landing the aircraft was airborne again. The onboard service is excellent, the crew are friendly and the aircraft nice and clean even though very little pre-take off work is done on them. I don’t know about the food as I’d already eaten in the airport, but I’d heard other travellers saying it was quite good. The only thing is that their brochure states that they have a Fokker 50 fleet “all with leather seats”, well, ours didn’t have one leather seat (I flew on the same aircraft both ways, it is probably kept specially at Brussels for the LCY flight as VLM do not serve anywhere else from BRU).[www.groups.yahoo.com/group/sabenabelgianairlines]

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 11-09-02 AT 07:36 PM (GMT)]Im flying to London City tomorrow morning on VLM’s new service out of MAN, then back on Friday. Looking forward to the short flight. London City is open on a Sunday, but it doesn’t really start to get going until the afternoon/evening. Saturday is their really quiet day.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

The only downside to LCY is that they are closed on Sundays I think? This must have a knock-on effect on Friday and Saturday passenger numbers as it rules out using LCY for a weekend break.

As it is I use LCY maybe twice a year, but I use LGW about 5 times a year – entirely because of the Sunday thing.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Carl727,When do the Keenair flights start to LCY from LPL?Do you see them being successful seeing that VLM are offering flights from as low as £28 for a one way trip?

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

I find it the most stress-free of the London Airports to use. I have flown from/to there several times and will be again soon as VLM are starting MAN-LCY tomorrow. Also one of best friends lives 5 mins from the terminal so, that very handy for me !!

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

When the 7.5 degree glideslope was in place (and the runway was not much over 800 meters) in was Dash 7’s only. They had to lengthen the runway by half as much again and reduce the glideslope angle to allow other types to get approval into LCY. I have recently done a couple of approaches into Bodrum, Turkey in a 757-300 which is a 4 degree ILS 9as opposed to the usual 3 degree) and that feels like you are standing on the rudder pedals! The rad alt call outs (50, 40, 30, etc.) seem to come at you very fast and encourage you to flare too soon promoting high risk of a tail strike, so I dread to think what a 5.5 or a 7.5 degree look like!

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

7,5 glideslope¡¡¡¡, That should be radical.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Why did they go for a shallower glideslope? I thought the current types had always been able to use LCY – 146, Dash etc..

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Originally it was much shorter with a 7.5 degree glideslope.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Sad old me sits in front of the telly waiting for eastenders and then I tell the whole family where the airport is!

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

It’s the best airport I’ve used. The comfy leather seats in the Departure lounge, overlooking the apron, are superb. I’ve been in much worse business class lounges!

The only drawbacks are twofold:

1. As usual, airlines take extreme sadistic pleasure in making people leave a nice departure lounge and wait for an eternity at the gate;

2. It is bloody impossible to get to LCY by land! They are finally building an extension to the DLR, after how many decades?! If you want to get to a London airport during rush hour, you basically have to use the express rail links. IF you find a taxi, it will take forever in traffic.

Gripes aside, it is a wonderful airport. I just love takeoffs. My last one was a Dash 8-300 of Flybe, they stand on the brakes and gun the engines, then roll down the runway with great acceleration. Tremendous fun. Second best take off in the UK, after Plymouth (v. short runway, you take off over a road and a small factory!).

Plus, views of Canary Wharf etc. are very good when descending into LCY.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Glad you enjoyed it Comet. 🙂

T5 my school also did the trip up to the Docklands, 2 years ago. We went to the Dome, LCY and a trip on DLR.

It was the first time I had ever gone to LCY, and I wanted to go back again so I did, a month later 😛 .

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Glad you enjoyed yourself.LCY does indeed look like a nice airport.It caters mostly for people on buisness because of its proximity to central London and also because of its good links to the major European buisness centres such as Brussels and Paris.I think another good thing about the airport is its size,its small terminal and turn around time,for example,it makes it a better option for people wanting an easy journey,compared to Heathrow.
Its an airport I would love to go to because,as you said,only small aircraft are permitted to land there because of noice regulations and obviously the runway size,so I would be able to see some of my favourite aircraft such as the Fokker 50 and BAe 146.Also that angle of descent must be fun!
How was your trip on VLM?Its a large operator over here in GCI in the summer,so i’m interested to know what they are like.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Lovely indeed, except for the 5,5 glide angle. It makes really step angles at landing. In any case, cosy, familiar, human….my favourite one.

RE: London City – Brilliant Airport

Sounds interesting.

I remember once taking a geography trip up to London from where I am in Reading. We were looking at the Docklands and made a trip to LCY which looked incredibly small for an airport.

I seem to recall there being a Tate and Lyle factory opposite as well?