Empty leg flights from London City Airport

London City is the airport closest to the City and Canary Wharf, three miles from the Wharf and about six from the City. Nothing else comes close on the ground: a car reaches the Wharf in a quarter of an hour and the Docklands Light Railway runs from a station at the terminal door.

What you give up for that is choice. The runway is short, the approach is the steepest in the country, and both the aircraft and the crew need specific certification to fly it. That narrows the fleet considerably, and it is the reason repositioning sectors are scarcer here than at most London fields.

Empty legs at London City right now

The board below shows what has been released across our operator network. Because the eligible fleet here is small, it is worth telling us your route even when nothing is listed, since we can look at aircraft that are certified for this approach and see where they are going next.

Departing from London City

Also moving across the other London airports

Sectors on this list do not touch London City itself. They are shown because the fields are close enough that the drive rarely costs you more than waiting for the right sector does. Tell us which one interests you and we will confirm it is still open.

Why sectors here are scarce

At most London fields, a repositioning flight can go to whichever field suits the operator. Here it cannot, and the reasons compound. Parking is also tight and expensive, so aircraft drop their passengers and leave rather than waiting, which is why what does appear here is mostly outbound and usually gone quickly.

The corridors that run from here

London City lives on the financial districts to its west, so the route map looks like a list of European financial centres with one holiday exception.

One more constraint worth knowing on any longer sector. Because the take off run is short, it limits how much fuel and payload an aircraft can carry, and on a warm day the margin shrinks further. It rarely affects a normal European trip, but it is worth mentioning before someone adds four passengers at the last minute.

Transatlantic flights are possible here but uncommon. Several long range types are approved for London City, the Falcon 7X and 8X among them, and Dassault quotes the 7X as able to reach New York nonstop from here with eight passengers. Most transatlantic trips still use Stansted, Luton or Farnborough, where the choice of aircraft is far wider and the take off run does not limit the load.

The airport in detail

The approach, and what it means for you

The glidepath into London City is almost twice as steep as a normal one. That is not a safety concern but a design response to the buildings around the Royal Docks, and the crews flying it have trained specifically for it. The approach and the airport's weather limits have consequences worth knowing about before you book, and there are four of them.

What the terminal is actually like

The private jet centre has its own entrance and no connection to the airline terminal. You will not see a queue, a departure board or a retail unit, and nobody from a scheduled flight passes through it.

The jet centre advertises ninety second departure and arrival checks. That is a marketing line rather than a stopwatch, but the underlying claim is fair: fifteen to twenty minutes before a domestic departure and twenty to thirty before an international one is ample here. What is different is the other end of the journey, where wheels down to a desk in Canary Wharf can be under half an hour.

What the ground costs

London City is not a cheap airport and nobody pretends otherwise. Space in the Royal Docks is finite, the airport shares its infrastructure with a busy scheduled operation, and both of those show up in the handling.

The arithmetic is unusual here and worth stating plainly. On most London fields the ground charges are a rounding error against the aircraft. At London City they are not, but neither is the time saved. For a day return from Canary Wharf the airport frequently wins anyway, and for a leisure trip with luggage it rarely does.

Getting into London

This is the whole point of the airport, and it delivers. These are typical off peak times.

The railway station sits at the terminal itself and is walkable from the jet centre, which is not true of Stansted, where the station is a short drive from the business centre. For a single passenger with hand luggage heading to the City, the train is often quicker than a car during the working day, and it is never held up by traffic.

When the airport is shut

Two closures shape everything about planning a trip here, and the second of them can arrive with little warning.

Neither closure is a reason to avoid the airport. They are a reason to treat it as a weekday tool for short European sectors, which is exactly what it was built to be.

Empty leg calendar for London City, month by month

London City runs on the working week rather than the holiday calendar, and it is the London field where a fortnight in August is easier to fly from than a Tuesday in September.

August and April are the months to aim for, which is close to the reverse of the pattern at the holiday airports around London. If your trip falls in March or September, book a charter early rather than waiting for a sector, because the aircraft that qualify for this approach are working somewhere else.

Three situations, three answers

Travelling with a dog or a cat

For a pet arriving from abroad, London City is not an option. It is not among the airports approved for dogs and cats entering the country on a private or charter flight, so a dog returning from France, Switzerland or Spain must land at an approved airport such as Luton, Farnborough, Biggin Hill or Stansted.

For travel within the British Isles and for departures the position is different and depends on the operator's own policy, which we check before quoting. If you are travelling with an animal, say so at the enquiry stage and we will steer you to the right airport rather than the nearest one.

Questions about flying from London City

Call +44 7857 574938, message the same number on WhatsApp, or write to flight@empty-leg.co.uk. Tell us the route and we will confirm quickly whether London City works for your aircraft and your dates, or whether another field will serve you better.