London City Airport is closed for all commercial and private air traffic, effective this Thursday morning. The suspension is set to last until the end of April.
The announcement was made on Wednesday afternoon. Scheduled flights were operating until the evening, before the airport closed its doors and will not reopen for more than a month. Workers will continue to be employed during this closure.
This decision by London City Airport (IATA: LCY) comes amid the Coronavirus crisis. Due to government-issued travel restrictions and a resulting fall in demand for air travel, most airlines around the world have been forced to make significant temporary cuts to their operations. Some have entirely suspended flying for a limited period of time.
The effect of this unprecedented global crisis is also hitting London’s most central airport. In Wednesday’s announcement, it states that most airlines have now suspended operations to and from the airport for the time being. According to Eurocontrol data, London City on average handled 81 percent less flight movements per day over the past seven days, compared to normal figures from 2019.
While the airport is closing for commercial and private flight movements, it says that the aerodrome can remain open for the purpose of emergency or military flights.
London City Airport, which served more than five million passengers in 2019, is becoming the third notable European Airport to temporarily close for all commercial and private flight movements. Until now, Milan Linate (IATA: LIN) and Rome Ciampino (IATA: CIA) in Italy, the current European epicenter of Coronavirus (Covid-19), were the only larger airports in Europe that closed for all traffic except selected special flights.
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Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
