THE HEAD of London/City Airport (LCY) is forecasting robust yearon-year growth at the Docklands gateway. Robert Sinclair, the airport’s chief executive, said co-operation with airline partners was critical to a sustainable recovery: “At the start of the pandemic we made a conscious decision to work with and support our airlines, as we recognised they were facing the same challenges as we were. Investing in these relationships in the hard times has facilitated what we believe will be a strong bounceback.” In an upbeat assessment of what the coming months hold, LCY revealed that more than three quarters of 2019 routes will return for 2022, with British Airways among the operators announcing a comprehensive summer schedule.
Just 714,000 passengers used the site in 2021 – down 21% on 2020 and 86% on 2019. A breakdown of the 2021 figures shows that in the first six months of the year, when extensive global travel restrictions were in place, the airport handled only 75,184 passengers. As restrictions eased in the final six months to December 2021, 638,785 people used the airport. Sinclair added: “While we are not out the woods yet, the signs from governments in the UK and across Europe are that we are learning to live with COVID.”