More than 5m passengers traveled through London City Airport in 2019
In 2019, London City Airport saw more than 5m passengers travel through for the first time in its history.
A record total of 5,100,025 passengers meant growth for the year was up 6.3 per cent on 2018.
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The most popular route remains between London and Amsterdam, with 664,621 passengers making the trip last year, an increase of 6.9 per cent.
Ediburgh and Dublin are the second and third most popular routes with 511,116 and 460, 132 passengers flying between the cities in 2019.
City airport has seen impressive growth on a number of domestic routes, with a 14.7 per cent increase in routes to Belfast and 10.2 per cent to Glasgow.
The airport said growth had largely been driven by “new markets and seasonal leisure-oriented routes”, rather than established routes.
It said this was a demonstration of the airport’s diverse customer base and growing relevance to the leisure market, with tourists selecting the airport as the easiest way to access London.
“It demonstrates that the combination of speed, convenience, excellent customer service and connectivity to and from the heart of London
continues to be a recipe for success,” said Richard Hill, chief commercial officer.
“That is why we are investing half-a-billion pounds in the transformative City Airport Development Programme to increase capacity and improve our facilities for passengers and airlines.
“With progress on so many fronts, and new routes to San Sebastián and Dundee already announced, 2020 is shaping up to be another successful year for London City Airport.”
According to Civil Aviation Authority data, leisure passengers accounted for 55 percent of people travelling to and from the airport last year.
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Growth was also aided by new routes to Budapest, Vilnius and Warsaw through LOT Polish Airlines.
While BA CityFlyer continued to drive growth as London City Airport’s largest airline partner with an additional 195,000 passengers due to additional aircraft and the launch of its Munich route and increased operations to Rome, Zurich and Edinburgh.