London City Airport reaches a million flights

Kay Atwal, Chief Reporter Saturday, July 21, 2012
6:00 AM

Glasses of wine and Irish dancers greeted arriving passengers as London City Airport marked the arrival of its millionth flight.

The Silvertown airport has now seen the total number of flights (arrivals and departures) reach one million it opened in 1987. The millionth movement, which arrived at LCY at 0850 on Wednesday July 11 2012, was CityJet flight AF5118 from Dublin.

As the unsuspecting passengers walked through the arrivals doors into the main terminal concourse, they were greeted with a glass of sparkling wine and an impromptu Irish dance performance from professional dancers who had been mingling with the normal Wednesday morning crowds.

As soon as the performance was over, the dancers disappeared leaving the passengers to continue with their journey, having been part of something brief, but momentous. The performance can be viewed at http://youtu.be/Kxg5N3gwd_4

Declan Collier, Chief Executive Officer, London City Airport believes the second million flights will not take as long to achieve. He said: “The airport is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and it’s a great thing that the two landmarks are happening together in 2012 – which, of course, happens to be when the greatest sporting show in the world is in town. We’re extremely proud to have worked with our airline partners past and present to deliver one million movements in that 25 year period – a million movements which have carried a total of 35.5 million passengers.

“From here, we’re looking at the next million movements. We handled 70,000 in 2011, we expect some 90,000 in 2015 and we have permission for 120,000 – although we’ll need to make some more space for that number – so it’s perfectly possible that the next million are achievable within ten years. London City Airport has been a fantastic success story to date and we’re committed to seeing that success continue.”