London City airport waters down proposals for 40% capacity hike

London City airport dialed back plans for more early-morning and Saturday flights to make an effort to lift capacity by almost 40% more palatable to planning officials and local people.

The terminal, favored by business travelers for its proximity to London’s financial districts, is sticking with an application to raise its annual passenger cap to 9 million from from 6.5 million while modifying other elements of the expansion goals, according to a statement Monday.

Changes to a planning request include as many as nine flights in the first 30 minutes of any given day starting 6.30 a.m., down from 12, and Saturday operations from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., plus an extra hour in summer for arrivals. The airport had previously looked to host flights until 10 p.m. on Saturdays.

London City, hemmed in by housing on a former docklands site in the UK capital’s East End, is seeking to add passengers without resorting to extra trips, with a ceiling of 111,000 aircraft movements to be retained, together with an eight-hour night-time curfew and limited operations on Sundays.

The plan also requires no new infrastructure after permission for eight more aircraft stands and a new terminal and taxiway was granted in 2016, though the additional flights would have to be performed by new-generation jets such as the Airbus SE A220, a plane that’s at the limit of the airport’s short runway.