London City Airport is 23 minutes from Bank on the DLR, check-in opens two hours before departure, and security takes about five minutes. There is no left-luggage office, no working lounge until early 2027, and the terminal shuts at 13:00 on Saturday.
Our guide to London City Airport covers where it is, what the train costs and who flies from it. This page is about the departure itself: when to leave your hotel, where the bag-tag machines hide, what you can and cannot do inside the building, and the three or four things that catch people out.
The short version is that City rewards travellers who arrive late and punishes anyone who arrives early. It is a small building with one security lane, few seats and nowhere to leave a suitcase. If you turn up three hours before a flight you will spend most of that time looking at the same coffee counter.
Departing from City Airport: the numbers
- Terminal hours (August 2026)
- 04:45–22:00 Monday to Friday; 04:45–13:00 Saturday; 10:30–22:00 Sunday
- Check-in and bag drop
- Opens two hours before your scheduled departure
- Security
- About five minutes on average; no fast-track lane sold
- Gates
- 24, across two wings
- Left luggage
- None (airport FAQ, August 2026)
- Lounge
- None open; the airport expects to open one by early 2027
- Journey from Bank
- 23 minutes by DLR (TfL Journey Planner, September 2026)
Working backwards: when to leave central London
TfL's own journey planner gives 23 minutes for the direct DLR from Bank to London City Airport DLR station, and it gave the same figure for every departure we checked at 09:00 and at 14:00 on a weekday. The airport's own website says 21 minutes. Neither figure includes the walk down to the DLR platform at Bank, which is long, so treat 25 to 30 minutes as the realistic door-to-terminal time from the City.
From there the arithmetic is unusually simple, because the terminal is small. Check-in desks open two hours before your flight and the airport says you can usually get from kerb to gate in minutes. Security averages around five minutes. A reasonable plan for a flight at 09:00 with hand luggage only is to be inside the terminal at 07:45, which means leaving Bank at about 07:15.
If you are checking a bag, add twenty minutes rather than an hour: the tagging is self-service and the airport says the bag-drop step itself usually takes about a minute. The constraint is your airline's own deadline, not the building, so read the deadline on your booking rather than a general rule.
Arriving very early at City buys you nothing. There is no lounge, the departure lounge is small and there is no left-luggage counter to park a case in while you wander the Royal Docks. If you have hours to spare, spend them at Canary Wharf, four stops back down the line, and come out to the airport later.
The bag-tag machines are outside the building
This is the detail that confuses first-timers. The self-service bag-tag machines sit outside the terminal entrance, next to the DLR station, so you tag your own bag before you go indoors. Passengers flying with LOT Polish Airlines can get their tags there too.
Two airlines work differently. British Airways has its own self-service bag-tag area just inside the main terminal entrance, and Lufthansa and Swiss passengers use an Express Bag Drop in the middle of the main terminal. Once the bag carries a tag you join a bag-drop desk, and that queue is usually the short part of the morning.
There is also an overnight bag drop, which almost nobody knows about. Passengers flying with British Airways, KLM or Luxair can drop bags from 16:00 the day before, for flights leaving London City at or before 10:00 the next morning. If you are staying in east London and facing a dawn start, that is a genuinely useful hour of sleep.
Security: one process, no queue-jumping sold
City does not sell a fast-track lane at all. The airport's own answer is that it does not operate one and that passing through security takes around five minutes on average. That is the trade-off for a small airport: nothing to buy, and usually nothing to buy your way out of.
The airport has installed CT scanners, so its own guidance is to leave liquids and electronics inside your hand baggage at the check. The 100 ml limit per container still applies here, and the airport's departure-hall signs say so plainly. Do not assume the airport you fly home from works the same way; our guide to the liquid rules at British airports explains why the rules differ from terminal to terminal.
If you opt out of the walk-through scanner, staff carry out a hand search in private. Parents can take enough baby food and milk for the journey, and the airport defines that journey as running from London City to your final destination including connections, so bring onward tickets if you need more than one flight's worth.
What is actually open before security
The airport lists shops and food on both sides of the security line rather than clustering everything airside. WH Smith runs stores before and after security, and the airport describes its cafes and restaurants the same way, so you can eat before you commit to the departure lounge. The bar and kitchen concessions inside the building were all rated 5 by the Food Standards Agency at their most recent inspections, the latest of them in August 2026.
Three practical gaps are worth knowing. The only designated smoking area is outside, next to the terminal entrance; once you are through security there is nowhere to smoke and no way back out. There is no dedicated baby-feeding room, and the airport's answer is to ask staff for the first-aid room in the main terminal, which is before security. And relief facilities for assistance dogs are landside, opposite the drop-off area; reaching the airside one needs a staff escort, so ask on arrival rather than after you have cleared security.
The main departure lounge does have USB charging and plug sockets, which is more than several bigger terminals manage. Our page on charging your phone in London has the wider picture if your flight is delayed.
There is no left luggage at London City
The airport states this twice in its own frequently asked questions, read on an Internet Archive copy dated 25 August 2026 because the live site refuses our requests: there is no left-luggage facility in the terminal, and it cannot offer the service. That matters more here than at Heathrow or Gatwick, because City is the airport people use for a single day's business and then want to sightsee before the flight home.
The workable answer is to leave bags in central London and travel out clean. Nine main-line stations have a staffed office, all of them open 07:00 to 23:00 seven days a week, at about £10 per item for up to three hours and £15 for up to 24 hours. Left luggage at London's stations compares those with the cheaper app-based storage in shops, and our wider left-luggage guide covers which option suits which kind of day.
Do not plan a City Airport day around storing a case at the airport. Round-trip from the terminal to the nearest station office and back is well over an hour on the DLR, so the bag has to come off your back before you head east, not after.
The lounge that is not open yet
City has no operational business lounge. The airport says construction of a new lounge is under way and that it expects to open by early 2027. Until then, airline and card-scheme lounge access at this airport means nothing, whatever your card promises. Our survey of airport lounges in London explains which airports do have them and what a walk-up pass costs.
In practice the departure lounge is the lounge. Seating is limited at busy times, which is another argument for the late arrival.
The last flight out on Saturday, and the first on Sunday
The terminal closes at 13:00 on Saturday, so the last departures leave well before lunchtime and bag drop for them closes earlier still. Work back two hours from your flight time and check that the answer is not before 04:45, when the building opens. Our comparison of which London airport suits your trip is the page to read if a Saturday evening flight is the whole point of your weekend.
Sunday needs one caution. The airport's opening-hours panel gives 10:30, but the machine-readable opening times embedded in the same pages give 10:45. We have printed both rather than pick one. Either way, a Sunday flight before about 12:30 is tight, and there is nothing to do outside the doors while you wait.
| Day | Terminal open | Earliest sensible flight | What it means for bag drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 04:45–22:00 | From about 06:45 | Full two-hour window available all day |
| Saturday | 04:45–13:00 | From about 06:45 | Last flights are late morning; nothing after 13:00 |
| Sunday | 10:30 (panel) or 10:45 (site data)–22:00 | From about 12:30 | No early Sunday departures at all |
Bank holidays have their own hours and the airport publishes a special-hours list, so check it rather than assuming a Monday behaves like a Monday.
Getting dropped off, and the ten-minute rule
If someone drives you, the drop-off zone has a maximum stay of ten minutes. Overstay it and the driver receives a £100 enforcement charge, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days, enforced by camera. That is a short goodbye by any standard.
Black cabs are treated separately. Following a TfL consultation, drivers are authorised to add £6.00 on the meter to cover part of the drop-off charge; the airport charges them £7.00 for the first five minutes and £1 a minute after that, to the same ten-minute maximum. So a cab to the terminal costs the metered fare plus up to £6.00, while a cab from the rank has no rank surcharge. Our guide to black cabs, minicabs and ride apps explains how the tariffs work.
Blue Badge holders get 30 minutes of free parking in the main car park, validated at the desk with the badge. Special assistance at London's airports covers booking help in advance.
Why City is a poor place to change planes
There is no dedicated transfer area. The airport's own instruction to connecting passengers is to arrive, clear customs, then go through security again and return to the departure lounge as an ordinary departing passenger. For a single-terminal airport that is manageable, but it means you leave the secure area and rejoin the queue, and it makes a tight connection risky.
Anyone connecting between City and another London airport should read connecting between London's airports first, because the DLR and Elizabeth line journey across town is the part that goes wrong, not the airport.
The mistake people make
It is not missing the flight. It is treating City like a full-service airport: booking a car to arrive three hours early, expecting a lounge, planning to dump the suitcase and go and see Greenwich, or buying a Saturday teatime return that does not exist. The building is designed to move you from a train to a gate quickly, and it does that better than any other London airport, but it offers almost nothing to anyone who wants to linger.
Used properly, that is the appeal. Tap in with a contactless card or Oyster, ride the DLR out with your bag, tag it on the pavement, and be through security in five minutes. Our explainer on Oyster and contactless fares covers the payment side, and riding the DLR in the front seat is a reminder that the journey out is the nicest part of any London airport transfer.
One last thing for late arrivals rather than departures: the airport closes overnight, so a delayed evening flight can land into a building that is about to shut. Late-night and early-morning airport transport has the last-train picture.
Frequently asked questions
How early should I get to London City Airport?
Check-in and bag drop open two hours before your scheduled departure, and security takes about five minutes on average, so being inside the terminal 60 to 75 minutes before a short-haul flight with hand luggage is comfortable. Always check your airline's own check-in deadline, which is stricter than the airport's guidance.
Is there left luggage at London City Airport?
No. The airport's own frequently asked questions say there is no left-luggage facility in the terminal and that it cannot offer the service (read August 2026). Leave bags at a central London station office instead, where a staffed counter costs about £10 for up to three hours.
Does London City Airport have a lounge?
Not at the moment. The airport says it has no operational business lounge and that a new lounge is under construction, with an expected opening by early 2027. Until it opens, no card or airline status buys lounge access at this airport.
Can I drop my bags off the night before at London City?
Yes, on three airlines. The airport offers an overnight bag drop from 16:00 the day before for British Airways, KLM and Luxair passengers whose flights leave at or before 10:00 the following morning. Other airlines require you to drop bags on the day.
How long does security take at London City Airport?
The airport says about five minutes on average, and it does not sell a fast-track lane. Its CT scanners mean you can leave liquids and electronics in your hand baggage, although the 100 ml limit per container still applies.
Sources
- London City Airport - At the Airport, including terminal opening hours (read on an Internet Archive copy dated 25 August 2026; checked September 2026)
- London City Airport - Check-in and bag drop (read on an Internet Archive copy dated 21 July 2026; checked September 2026)
- London City Airport - Frequently asked questions (read on an Internet Archive copy dated 25 August 2026; checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Journey Planner, Bank to London City Airport (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - hygiene ratings register (Hithes, Juniper & Co, Soul & Grain and Big Penny Brews, London City Airport E16) (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Docklands Light Railway (checked September 2026)