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London City ‘largely unaffected’ by government slot amnesty

London City airport handled almost 70% of its pre-pandemic 2019 passenger numbers across June and July, with a total of 640,000.

More than 300,000 are expected this month as the airport closes in on one million passengers for the main summer travel months.

The Docklands airport is urging passengers to arrive no more than two hours before flight departures in August.

Travellers should also be prepared for security “to make the experience as smooth and as stress free as possible”.

Its short-haul programme is set to operate as planned throughout August.

An airport statement said: “While the UK government’s slot amnesty resulted in small changes to the airport schedule, London City’s operation has been largely unaffected through August and airlines have some remaining capacity on key domestic and short haul European routes.”

London City insisted it had delivered a “consistently high level of customer service” and has been fully staffed since the start of the summer period.

It continues on average to get passengers from the Docklands Light Railway to the gate lounge inside 25 minutes.

Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Zurich remained the busiest overall routes with Ibiza the strongest leisure performer, followed by Florence, Palma, Nice and Malaga.

Sun Air is set to restart a service to Billund in Denmark on September 5 with six flights a week.

Airport chief executive Robert Sinclair said: “We have made a conscious effort with our airlines to attract more leisure routes and passengers this summer and the fact we could reach close to one million passengers for the period is testament to the resilience of our operation and quality of the passenger experience we offer. 

“While summer 2022 is proving to be a success, we want summer 2023 to be even better and that is why, later in the year, we will be announcing an investment along with our retail and food and beverage concessionaires in upgrading our existing departure lounge so that our customers have even more choice and comfort when they travel through London City.”

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