How Busy Is London City Airport? The Quiet Hours and the Ones to Avoid

By Ian Silva. Passenger figures are CAA 2025. Airport details checked September 2026.

London City handled 3,737,888 passengers in 2025. That makes it the fifteenth busiest airport in the UK, just behind East Midlands and roughly one twenty-second the size of Heathrow. On a normal Tuesday afternoon you could walk in, clear security and be at the gate before you have finished a phone call. On a Thursday at half seven in the morning it is one of the most concentrated airports in the country.

Both of those are true at the same time, and the reason is the shape of the timetable rather than the size of the building.

How busy is London City Airport, really?

Small, by any national measure. Heathrow moved 84.5 million passengers in 2025, Gatwick 42.8 million, Stansted 29.8 million and Luton 17.8 million. London City moved 3.7 million through one terminal, one runway and 15 gates.

The passenger experience backs that up. In the Department for Transport’s survey of more than 15,000 travellers, published in October 2025, 81 per cent of London City passengers said they queued five minutes or less for security. That was the best of the seven UK airports surveyed, against a national figure of 56 per cent. Fewer than one in a hundred waited longer than twenty minutes.

The busiest times at LCY

Weekday mornings, 06:30 to 09:00. This is the peak and nothing else is close. The first wave to Amsterdam, Zurich, Dublin, Edinburgh and Frankfurt goes out together, and the airport is built to push a lot of people through a small space in ninety minutes.

Weekday evenings, 16:30 to 19:30. The same people coming home, plus the last outbound departures. Busier on arrivals than departures, which is why the pick-up area and the DLR platform feel worse than the security hall.

Saturday morning. The one most people do not expect. London City closes to flights at lunchtime on a Saturday and does not reopen until Sunday lunchtime, as a condition of its planning permission. The whole Saturday operation is squeezed into the morning, so an 11am Saturday departure can be busier than a midweek one at the same hour.

Sunday evening. Flights only resume from Sunday lunchtime, so the evening carries a full day’s worth of returning traffic in half the hours.

The quiet times

Mid-morning, roughly 10:00 to noon on a weekday, is the calmest the airport gets while still being open and fully staffed. Early afternoon, 14:00 to 16:00, is nearly as good. The first hour after the terminal opens at 04:45 is quiet in the hall, though you will be sharing it with the earliest departures.

If you have any choice at all about when you fly out of City, the middle of a weekday is the version of this airport that made its reputation.

Terminal and flight hours

The building closes at 22:00 (13:00 on Saturday) or after the final flight, whichever is later, and you cannot stay overnight. If you land late, have your onward travel sorted before you do, because the DLR thins out and the terminal empties fast.

Why a small airport can still feel crowded

Because there is no slack in it. One security hall, 15 gates across two short piers, and a departure lounge sized for the average rather than the peak. When everything works, that is the whole appeal: you are never far from anything and the walk from the door to the gate is under ten minutes.

When one thing goes wrong there is nowhere for the queue to go. In September last year passengers reported an hour-long security queue that backed down the escalators, with staff holding people downstairs and releasing them by departure time, apparently after a scanner went out of service and an unusual number of bags were pulled for manual checks. At Heathrow that gets absorbed across dozens of lanes. At City it is the whole airport.

That is rare, and it is not a reason to avoid the place. It is a reason to keep your own margin cheap: hand luggage packed to the 100ml limit that still applies at LCY, boarding pass on the phone, and a sensible arrival time rather than a heroic one.

Is London City Airport a big airport?

No, and deliberately so. The runway is 1,508 metres with a 5.5 degree approach angle steep enough that aircraft and crews need specific certification to use it. That limits the fleet, which limits the route map to short-haul Europe, which keeps the whole operation small.

It is growing, though not in the way most airports do. Approval is in place to lift the cap from 6.5 million to 9 million passengers a year using larger and quieter aircraft rather than more flights, and the airport is working towards A320neo operations. More people, same number of movements.

Arrivals: the bit nobody plans for

City’s arrivals are its best trick. One level, a short walk from stand to hall, and you are at the kerb in minutes rather than the forty it can take at a big terminal.

The bottleneck moved outside instead. Since January 2026 the forecourt is charged, at £8 for five minutes to drop off and £10 for the first twenty minutes in the pick-up car park, all read by number plate. When three European arrivals land inside half an hour, everyone heads for the same pick-up area at once. Meeting someone off a flight is the moment to have a plan, which is the case our London City Airport transfers are built around: the flight is tracked, so the car arrives when the aircraft does rather than circling the Royal Docks.

Meeting a flight, or catching one?
See every London City Airport transfer route
Flight tracked, fixed price agreed before you travel

Frequently asked questions

How busy is London City Airport?

It handled 3.7 million passengers in 2025, fifteenth in the UK. Quiet by national standards, but concentrated into weekday morning and evening peaks.

What is the busiest time at London City Airport?

Weekday mornings between 06:30 and 09:00, followed by weekday evenings from about 16:30. Saturday morning is busier than it looks because the airport shuts to flights at lunchtime.

What is the quietest time to fly from London City?

Mid-morning to early afternoon on a weekday, roughly 10:00 to 16:00.

Is London City Airport small?

Yes. One terminal, one runway, 15 gates. The runway is 1,508 metres and needs a steep 5.5 degree approach, which restricts it to smaller aircraft.

Is London City Airport busy on a Saturday?

In the morning, yes. Flights stop at lunchtime on Saturday and do not resume until Sunday lunchtime, so a full day’s traffic runs before 13:00.

How long does it take to get through London City Airport?

The airport says under ten minutes from the entrance to the gate. In the DfT’s survey, 81 per cent of passengers queued five minutes or less at security.

Is London City Airport getting busier?

Slowly. It carried 3.57 million in 2024 and 3.74 million in 2025, and has approval to reach 9 million a year using larger aircraft rather than more flights.

Arena nights are the clearest example of the wave effect. See London City to The O2 and London City to the InterContinental The O2 for how we time those runs.

For terminal layout, lounges, transport and everything else on the day, see the London City Airport guide.