For many people working in Ireland the monthly trip to the mother ship head office in London is something of a rite of passage. Numerous firms have big presences here, and many have small offices here. But for a lot of them, the bosses are still based in the UK capital. One need only get an early-morning flight to London on a weekday to see how busy it can be. It’s fair to say there are very few tourists sitting at Gate 409 in Dublin waiting to get the 6.40 Aer Lingus flight to Heathrow on a Tuesday morning. Similarly, it can sometimes feel like you can get on an early flight to London City Airport if you are wearing business attire. Brown shoes are acceptable in town in Dublin, but not if you’re travelling to a skyscraper in the City.
City airport, of course, faces much tighter restrictions than Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. While it is a much better location for anyone trying to get quickly to Canary Wharf or the Square Mile – hop on the DLR and away you go – its small size and short runway mean carriers servicing the airport must use smaller aircraft with lower capacity. So for many it will be welcome news that the UK government has signed off on the airports plans to boost its capacity by about a third to nine million passengers by 2031. There is a cost to the plan – environmental groups have warned emissions will go up, even if newer, more efficient aircraft are used – but for people scrambling to get to the office on a last-minute booking the extra capacity will be very welcome indeed.
The expansion is no doubt being looked at with interest in Dublin Airport manager DAA, restricted as it is by a cap on 32 million passengers per year. London City faces its own cap of sorts: a 24-hour respite period from 12.30pm on Saturday, with some exceptions. Unlike Dublin though, City is essentially a Sunday night to Friday night operation for most of the year and is quiet at weekends. In truth, the respite period has little impact on the airport week to week.
