London City’s chief executive, Robert Sinclair, said: “The strength of our rebound demonstrates the huge pent-up demand for air travel and the need to plan responsibly for the future. The airport closed entirely to commercial flights for three months during the pandemic in 2020. London City has launched a 10-week consultation on the expansion plans, which will need to be agreed by its London borough, Newham. He said the planes that City would invite were much larger, and “only noticeably quieter when taking off over communities close to the airport”. Stewart questioned the worth of assurances that only newer planes would fly at certain times. There will be anger that the only break now will be for a few hours on Sunday morning.” Its chair, John Stewart, said: “Ever since London City opened, residents have had a break from the noise between midday Saturday and midday Sunday. However, the residents’ organisation Hacan East said the plans for Saturday flying would anger communities.

It said the plans would create 2,100 additional jobs and contribute another £750m a year to London’s economy.

It said it would achieve the numbers with no additional flights or runways while retaining an eight-hour overnight curfew. The airport hopes to increase its annual number of passengers from 3 million to 9million by 2031, but has a current cap of 6.5 million.

London City also wants to be allowed to operate more flights in the early morning and late evening, although it said only quieter new aircraft would be permitted in those slots.

Flying out of london city airport