London City airport has announced plans to expand its appeal to premium leisure travellers in a bid to shed its image as an airport for corporate travel.
Speaking to The Times at the weekend, new chief executive Robert Sinclair said the shift will come as part of a five-year £400 million revamp of the Docklands airport.
London City, which saw 4.5 million people transit through the airport last year, hopes to attract premium leisure carriers to operate European holiday routes.
Routes identified as the airport looks at increase passenger numbers by two million include Munich, Madrid, Paris, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.
Sinclair told The Times as well as new city break routes the airport will be operating increasing numbers of feeder flights to airports like Schiphol in Amsterdam to feed long-haul connections.
“We want London to embrace City airport as its closest airport . . . and one that all sorts of people can use,” he said.
Last summer the proportion of leisure travellers using London City overtook business travellers for the first time. However, Sinclair said he didn’t see the airport losing its position as the UK airport with the highest percentage of business travellers.
“That will absolutely remain the case, but I feel that, and our airlines feel that, we can grow the leisure market in conjunction with business over a period of time,” he told The Times.
The airport cannot accommodate large carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet so will work with existing carriers to expand its operation including BA Cityflyer, KLM, Lufthansa, Swiss and TAP Portugal.
Meanwhile the London City boss confirmed it will carry out a feasibility study into creating a Crossrail station at the airport.
Sinclair said the new Queen Elizabeth line was a “major strategic imperative” for the airport. The feasibility study into a proposed £50 million station was take up to two years.