Event & venue transfers
Around 28.3 miles door to door, 55 min when the roads are behaving. From £105, locked at booking, with no meter running and no surge applied.
A taxi from Hillingdon to London City Airport is £105 in a saloon, £130 in a 6-seat MPV and £145 in an 8-seater. It is about 28.3 miles and 55 min off-peak, or 1h 30m 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 £105 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £130 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £145 |
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. A drop-off and a booked return sidesteps it entirely.
The road out of Hillingdon is the part people tend to get wrong. The run is the A40 east to the A406, then the North Circular south to the A13 and A1020, which is about 28.3 miles and 55 min on a clear road.
One stretch governs the whole trip: the A40 at Perivale and the A406 at Bounds Green. That is where 55 min turns into 1h 30m, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
The North Circular route is the night line and avoids the centre entirely.
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 Hillingdon the public transport route is the Elizabeth line to Custom House, then a short DLR hop, with one change, and it runs about 75 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 5.60 pounds.
The car is 55 min off-peak and 1h 30m at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in UB3, UB4, UB7, UB8, UB10, HA4. Once you add the walk at both ends the car wins on time as well as comfort.
There are two catches the journey planner does not show. 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 £105, or about £35 each between three.
Outbound is simple. 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.
Inbound, look for the car 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.
The demand here comes from a handful of places in Hillingdon: Heathrow's airside and cargo workforce, Brunel University, Hillingdon Hospital and the Stockley Park business estate. The result is a route that never fully quietens, which is why we cover it around the clock.
If you are collected near Brunel University, or anywhere else in UB3, UB4, UB7, UB8, UB10, HA4, it is the same fixed fare. We do not zone the borough or add a surcharge because a street is awkward to reach. London Borough of Hillingdon area, one price, quoted before you commit.
The three vehicle classes are not a sales ladder, they are three different amounts of boot. A Saloon at £105 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £130 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £145 takes seven and seven large cases.
Almost every mis-booking comes from counting people only. 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.
A large share of London City Airport departures push people out of Hillingdon in the dark. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - The North Circular route is the night line and avoids the centre entirely. 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.
We cover the whole of Hillingdon for this route: UB3, UB4, UB7, UB8, UB10, HA4. 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.
Some addresses have a bay; most do not. 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.
£105 in a saloon, £130 in a 6-seat MPV and £145 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 55 min off-peak. The rail alternative is Uxbridge 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.
Yes, and it is the leg worth booking. The driver is in position before you come out instead of you joining the queue that forms the moment it ends.
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.
A 6-seat MPV is £130 and an 8-seater £145. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
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 Hillingdon go first, so a 04:00 pickup is worth locking the night before.
That is the off-peak figure for the 28.3-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h 30m, mostly because of the A40 at Perivale and the A406 at Bounds Green. 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 Hillingdon 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 £105 Saloon fare from Hillingdon 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.