London City Airport is one of London’s busiest airports, providing passage for well over 2.4 million passengers in the year 2009 – the latest year for which we have figures. That number is remarkable, especially keeping in mind that it is a number taken in the middle of a major financial crisis, which has led to a decline in air travel volumes globally. London City Airport LimitationsUse of London City Airport is limited to Short Take Off/Landing – STOL) airline operations. It mainly provides services to London’s central business district. Aircrafts seeking to use the airport must be multi-engined. They must also be fixed wing aircraft. The people flying them must also be licensed to undertake those that are known in aviation parlance as ‘5.5 degree approaches.’ In the upshot of all that, we find that there is a rather limited number of aircraft that can actually make use of London city airport. This situation is further complicated by the fact that there are noise restrictions in the part of London that hosts the airport, and the fact that the airport’s runway is also very limited in size- at 1508 meters.The history of London City AirportLondon city airport is not a very old one. Its construction, on what turns out to have previously been a dockland site, began in 1986 –and one year later, at the end of May 1987, the first aircraft made use of the airport.In 1988, the year when the London City Airport became fully operational, it provided passage to well over 130,000 passengers. By the year 1995, the average annual passenger number was hovering around the 500,000 mark, which by the turn of the millennium (the year 2000) had risen to 1,500,000 souls.