Event & venue transfers
Fixed at £85 from Ealing to London City Airport, about 21.4 miles and 45 min on a clear road. The price is locked when you book, not when you travel.
A taxi from Ealing to London City Airport is £85 in a saloon, £110 in a 6-seat MPV and £120 in an 8-seater. It is about 21.4 miles and 45 min off-peak, or 1h 20m in traffic. The fare is fixed at the moment you book and covers tolls, the driver's waiting time and your luggage.
| Vehicle | Capacity | Fixed fare |
|---|---|---|
| Saloon | up to 4 passengers, 2 large cases | from £85 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £110 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £120 |
Per vehicle, not per person. Tolls, congestion and crossing charges are already inside the price, and it does not change on the day.
The forecourt pickup on Hartmann Road, a few steps from arrivals. City is small enough that arrivals to kerb takes minutes, so a booked car is usually waiting before you are through. Your driver sends the exact standing point and the registration before they set off, so you are not circling a car park looking for a number plate.
Address: Hartmann Road, Royal Docks, E16 2PX.
Parking at London City Airport is limited and the surrounding streets are metered or permit-only, so self-driving usually costs more in time than the fare saves. Pre-booked both ways, none of that is your problem.
The road out of Ealing is the part people tend to get wrong. The run is the A40 east to the A406, then south and east to the A13 and the Royal Docks, which is about 21.4 miles and 45 min on a clear road.
The part worth planning around is Hanger Lane and the A12 at Bow. That is where 45 min turns into 1h 20m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
The North Circular flows at night and the run is much shorter than it looks.
Re-routing is the driver's job, not your cost. A fixed fare means the traffic is our risk.
Here is the alternative, with its real numbers. From Ealing the public transport route is the Elizabeth line direct to Custom House, then the DLR, with one change, and it runs about 55 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 4.60 pounds.
The car is 45 min off-peak and 1h 20m at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB6. On time alone the train is competitive, and if you are travelling light and alone it is a fair choice.
Two things the timetable will not tell you. The first train is 05:30 from Custom House and the last is 00:15, which rules rail out for a large slice of what London City Airport actually flies - the early bank needs you airside before the network wakes up. The second is luggage: the DLR is step-free and drops you at the terminal door, so this is the one London airport where the train genuinely handles luggage well - the catch is the changes to reach the DLR in the first place.
Three is the number. Two travellers should take the train; three should not. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £85, or about £28 each between three.
Going out, there is little to get wrong. London City is the most civilised drop-off in London: the set-down bay is a few metres from the door and the terminal is small enough that check-in to gate is genuinely twenty minutes. There is no set-down charge here.
Coming the other way, the driver meets you at the set-down bay outside the terminal doors on Hartmann Road, a few metres from check-in. The exact bay and the registration reach you by text before you land, so there is no hunting along a rank and no call to a switchboard.
Forty-five minutes of free waiting are included, which is ample - City clears an arriving flight faster than any other London airport. You walk out to a car, which is the whole reason people book the return leg too.
We track the inbound flight number, so an early landing or a two-hour delay changes the driver's schedule and not your fare. City's runway closes to a strict curfew and the last arrivals run tight, so we track the inbound and hold the car rather than guess.
We cover the whole of Ealing for this route: W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB6. Homes, hotels, offices, hospitals and station forecourts all work as pickup points, and the fare from any of them is the one you were quoted.
If there is a legal bay, that is where the car waits. Where there is not, the driver names a spot a few steps away that a car can legally stop in and messages you with it, rather than parking on a red route and hoping. It is a small thing, and it removes most of the stress from the first five minutes of a journey to London City Airport.
The demand here comes from a handful of places in Ealing: the Ealing Studios trade, Ealing Hospital, the West London College campuses and the Park Royal industrial estate. That mix gives the route three peaks: business before dawn, families through the morning in term breaks, and a steady evening run.
If you are collected near Ealing Studios, or anywhere else in W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB6, it is the same fixed fare. One price across the borough, whatever the street looks like. London Borough of Ealing area, one price, quoted before you commit.
The cheapest seats leave early, which makes this a night-time route. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - The North Circular flows at night and the run is much shorter than it looks. The building is the problem, not the route. Night entrances replace main doors, barriers that are open by day are down, and a driver who has not been told which side of the block you are on will circle.
Which is why the booking form asks where exactly, not just where. The side entrance, the service road, the one with the step - that goes to the driver with the job. They message rather than ring a bell at four in the morning, and the free waiting time runs from the booked hour, not from whenever they happen to arrive.
What separates the three vehicles is luggage, not luxury. A Saloon at £85 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £110 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £120 takes seven and seven large cases.
Four seats does not mean four suitcases. Four adults with four large cases are an MPV booking whatever the seat count says. Tell us the bag count and we size it properly rather than sending a car that cannot close.
Child seats and boosters are free but need naming in advance, with the child's age, because the seat has to be fitted before the car leaves. Skis, bikes, instruments and wheelchairs all travel if you say so at booking. Parties over seven go in several vehicles routed together, so everyone reaches the same kerb within a minute of each other.
£85 in a saloon, £110 in a 6-seat MPV and £120 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 45 min off-peak. The rail alternative is Ealing Broadway to London City Airport plus the walk, which is competitive going out and considerably slower coming back.
The forecourt pickup on Hartmann Road, a few steps from arrivals. You get the exact point and the registration by text beforehand.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
A 6-seat MPV is £110 and an 8-seater £120. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
The driver waits. We watch venue finish times rather than working to a fixed clock, so a late curtain does not leave you stranded or cost you extra.
No. The fare is fixed when you book. Traffic, tolls and the hour are our problem, not a line on your bill.
Twenty-four hours is comfortable and gets you the vehicle you asked for. Same-day works when a car is free, but the early slots out of Ealing go first, so a 04:00 pickup is worth locking the night before.
That is the off-peak figure for the 21.4-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 20m, mostly because of Hanger Lane and the A12 at Bow. We set the airport cutoff from the worse of the two, not the better one.
Nothing happens to the fare - it was fixed when you booked. If the road goes badly wrong the driver re-routes, and on an airport run we would rather you left Ealing half an hour early than argue about whose fault the A-road was. Give us the flight time and we set the pickup from it.
Card, bank transfer or cash, and nothing is added at the end. The £85 Saloon fare from Ealing covers the driver, the vehicle, tolls on the route, any Blackwall or Silvertown tunnel charge, and the free waiting time. No meter, no booking fee at checkout, no surge at any hour.
Fares are fixed at booking and shown per vehicle. Distances and journey times are approximate and vary with traffic and the exact pickup address. Page reviewed 14 September 2026.