London City Airport

[Mark Grima]

Hey guys,

My sis is flying AMS - LCY in the middle of the year. I have never been to that airport so wondering if anyone can offer some suggestions for getting into town and andy info on what the airport is like from a passengers point of view.

My Sister couldn't care less about spotting ar anything like that!!!

Cheers

M

[Nick Te Mata]

LCY is on the eastern edge of London city, so there's not a plethora of public transport options as is the case with LHR. As far as public transport goes, the quickest and cheapest option would most likely be the DLR (Docklands Light Rail). There's a station attached to LCY -- it's a 20 minute ride into Bank station, a tube interchange which is in the Financial District. She can transfer there to a couple of other lines, District and Central lines included which head toward the West End. I find the best thing to do is to buy a day pass -- usually a similar cost to single tickets (£4 IIRC) but can be used until 2am the following day.

The only real drawback is if she's travelling with a bit of luggage; Bank can be a bit of a hassle to make a transfer as a lot of walking can be involved, and the Tube is often heavily packed, even outside of peak.

Apart from a couple of TfL buses which delve into East London and Arsenal, that's pretty much the only public transport option if she's going to the city. Cabs operate too but in my experience it'd be at least £30 to the City (financial district) -- more if she's headed to the West End.

[Peter Agatsiotis]

Mark, she can always go for a row or a swim and she can take some pics for you LOL:D:D

[Matt D]

Hi Mark, by co-incidence I will be flying AMS-LCY tomorrow morning. I allow 50 minutes from clearing immigration to getting to the office in the city on the DLR. LCY is small, usually very efficient and pax friendly. Very much tailored to the business traveller.

Nick has pretty much covered the transport side of things.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/oyster-rail-services-map.pdf The airport is on the blue DLR line on the east side of the map. (The DLR is a driverless train line if travelling with kids the front seats are great!)

The www.tfl.gov.uk journey planner is the best option for routing options from the airport. You can put in your destination (hotel name, postcode of the hotel) and get the best routing options.

Matt

[Ash W]

With transport I would never buy a day card. The best thing to do is to get an Oyster card and say throw 20 GBP on it. Everytime you use it it will deduct the cheapest fare for that journey and it price caps, so it will never be more expensive than the price of a day travel card. The oyster card can then be used on all forms of transport in London, including the national rail network (within greater London).

The only trick using the Oyster on the DLR when connecting to the tube, you must ensure that you swipe your Oyster card at the connecting tube station, otherwise the tube won't know where you got on, so automaticly deducts the highest fare available. There are readers for this purpose on the DLR platforms where interchange to the tube is avilabale. The same also applies for transfers from tube to mainline train and from tube to Tramlink in Wimbledon.

Oyster is ideal for visitors too, because when you leave you hand the card back in and get back your full deposit plus any outstanding credit on the card.

To buy a single or day travel card you have to line up each time you want to buy a ticket, and with singles in particular the cost is always much higher. Travelcards are ok provided you are happy to line up each day and know exactly how far you are going to go each day and how many trips you are going to make. With Oyster it doesn't matter as it works it out as you go, and as I said before caps each day at the day travelcard rate for the journeys undertaken.

[Mark Grima]

Thanks very much guys, some very usefull info for my sister. To quote Lauren "very helpful -thanks!".

Cheers

M

[Bruce Bramwell]

Top Gear did the best, cycling got in first, boat, public transport then car

[David Ramsay]

Every time anyone mentions LCY, I think of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2A7pgdWHYs) :eek:

[Matt D]

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5TueMRq0k) time lapse video is one of my favourites and gives a good idea of the type of traffic (including a runway change at 1:20)

[Russell D]

Wow that's an awesome video Matt. Thanks for posting. It's so cute to watch them all come and go like that. What amazes me most though is how they all manage to turn around during parking in what seems to be a very tight turning circle.:D

[Mike W]

With transport I would never buy a day card. The best thing to do is to get an Oyster card

Ash, the "Oyster Card sounds fantastic. Why don't we have something like that for Sydney Public Transport? (don't bother answering, I live here, am familar with the state of government, etc). Sounds similar to what we used in Singapore. I loved it :cool:

[Ash W]

Yeah poor old Sydney is being left behind with ticketing. They cannot even manage to have any real form of integrated ticketing let alone something as complex is Oyster. I see though that Melbourne now has a new system which is Oyster like in many ways, not sure if it price caps though. For me price capping is what makes Oyster so good.