Today the UK Government has given the go-ahead to LCY to expand. The plan had previously been turned down by Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary when he was the Mayor of London.
The expansion will see the creation of 7 new aircraft stands, a parallel taxiway, and a long awaited expansion to the terminal.
Creating 500 jobs during construction and 1,600 afterwards it will be a passenger friendly improvement. The terminal is dreadfully overcrowded at time, and although not complete until 2019, it is a good start.
The £344m required for the project is being privately funded.
LCY hopes that airlines will take the chance to expand routes to the East Coast of the USA and to The Gulf, Middle East, Turkey and Russia.
Parallel taxiway NOT runway. Good news for the airport.
@Michelle – Whoops! Fixed – thanks!
ANY undoing of Boris Johnson is good news indeed! Congrats LCY!
Ah, I saw “Runway” and got excited and started wondering where they will put it!!! Good news nonetheless.
The Boarding Area headline still says runway.
A. This is a repeat post.
B. The title is wrong – it’s a taxiway not a runway.
“LCY hopes that airlines will take the chance to expand routes to the East Coast of the USA and to The Gulf, Middle East, Turkey and Russia.”
It will be interesting to see if Qatar Airways test the waters with an all-business class flight to Doha. In May 2014 Qatar Airways launched an all-business class flight between Doha and London Heathrow – the service ran for 18 months until the end of October 2015 (the end of the summer timetable).
The “Business One” flight, as it was called, was operated by an Airbus A319 with just 40 business class seats, spread across 10 rows in a 2-2 configuration.