London City Airport Albert and King George V docks to the north and south respectively, also means that there are no covered maintenance facilities for aircraft. With space limited in the London Docklands area, and comparatively low passenger volumes, London City Airport is small compared with several other airports serving London, such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. The airport has a single, two-storey passenger terminal building. The ground floor contains the check-in desks and some service facilities as well as a staircase leading to the security control on the upper level, after which the airside waiting area and several more shops can
London City Airport May 1987, with the first commercial services operating from 26 October 1987. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened London City Airport in November of the same year. In 1988, the first full year of operation, the airport handled 133,000 passengers. The earliest scheduled flights were operated to and from Plymouth, Paris, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. With a runway of only in length, and a slope of the glidepath of 7.5° (for noise abatement reasons), the airport could only be used by a very limited number of aircraft types, principally the Dash 7 and the smaller Dornier Do 228. In 1989 the airport