Newham Council—the local authority for London City Airport—has unanimously rejected the airport’s application to increase its passenger cap and extend its opening hours.
The airport is now planning to appeal the decision.
“The refusal reflects the council’s continued concerns over the noise and environmental impact of the airport on those living nearby. These concerns were shared by a number of other boroughs, who also submitted objections to the proposals,” a Newham Council spokeswoman said. “The decision upholds the recommendation made by planning officers.”
London City was looking to increase its annual passenger cap from 6.5 million to 9 million, while maintaining its 111,000 annual flight limit. For context, London City handled 3 million passengers in 2022, and 4 million are expected in 2023, putting the airport on track to exceed pre-pandemic levels of 5 million in 2024. This means the downtown London airport could reach its existing 6.5 million cap by the mid-2020s, hitting up to 9 million passengers by 2031.
The airport planned to grow passenger numbers by adding three additional early morning movements, taking it to nine flights between 6:30 a.m.-6:59 a.m. Saturday opening hours would be extended from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., or 7:30 p.m. during the summer months, allowing for up to 12 arriving flights. This was already a watered-down version of an original plan for 12 early morning movements and Saturday opening hours being extended to 10:00 p.m. Local residents opposed this plan during an earlier consultation.
London City proposed that only the latest generation aircraft, such as the Embraer E190-E2, E195-E2 and Airbus A220 variants, would be allowed to operate new flights during the extended opening hours.
“We are disappointed with Newham Council’s refusal of our proposals,” London City Airport CEO Robert Sinclair said. “We have worked incredibly hard to develop proposals that genuinely reflect concerns raised.”
The airport will now appeal the decision, arguing that the council did not properly balance the “limited impacts with the very significant benefits.” This is likely to involve a public inquiry, conducted by an independent planning inspector.
The Newham Council spokeswoman said that the application will now be referred to the Greater London Authority (GLA). The GLA is the regional governance body for Greater London.
Climate change concerns are increasingly impacting airport development plans. For example, an Amsterdam appeals court has just backed the Dutch government’s plans to reduce the number of flights at Schiphol Airport, overturning an earlier ruling.
The Dutch government wants to limit annual aircraft movements from 500,000 to 460,000 by the end of 2023, ultimately reducing this further to 440,000 a year. Several carriers, including Schiphol-based KLM, have argued for other measures to be taken into consideration.
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