London City Airport Reopening Omits European Business Hubs

(Bloomberg) -- London City Airport will reopen this weekend after almost three months without a single passenger flight, reviving a key travel artery to the U.K. capital’s main financial districts.

Services will initially be confined to the British Isles, starting with the Isle of Man from Sunday and links to Scotland, northern England and Dublin next month, the airport said in a statement Thursday.

British Airways is also offering tickets to leisure destinations in Spain and Italy, with no sign yet of a resumption of flights to continental Europe’s main business hubs. The U.K. government has introduced a two-week quarantine for people arriving in the country, something that’s expected to put companies off booking, while having less of an impact on the holiday market.

London City, favored by business travelers for its short boarding times and proximity to both the City and Canary Wharf financial centers, closed to traffic on March 25, with only a handful of military planes using it since.

The airport backed calls to scrap the quarantine policy and replace it with so-called air bridges allowing unlimited travel between specific countries. It said a survey of 4,700 customers showed 79% would most likely travel as soon as being told it was safe to do so.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.