Event & venue transfers
Around 15.0 miles door to door, 35 min when the roads are behaving. From £65, locked at booking, with no meter running and no surge applied.
A taxi from Kensington & Chelsea to London City Airport is £65 in a saloon, £85 in a 6-seat MPV and £90 in an 8-seater. It is about 15.0 miles and 35 min off-peak, or 1h 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 £65 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £85 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £90 |
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. Being dropped at the door and collected at an agreed point removes the whole problem.
There is one sensible way out of Kensington & Chelsea and the driver already knows it. The run is the Embankment east through the City, the Limehouse Link, then the A13, which is about 15.0 miles and 35 min on a clear road.
The variable is not distance, it is Knightsbridge and the Embankment in the morning peak. That is where 35 min turns into 1h, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
The whole width of London, but at night the Embankment makes short work of it.
Re-routing is the driver's job, not your cost. A fixed fare means the traffic is our risk.
Worth doing the sums rather than taking our word for it. From Kensington & Chelsea the public transport route is the District line to Tower Hill, then the DLR from Tower Gateway, with one change, and it runs about 55 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 3.40 pounds.
The car is 35 min off-peak and 1h at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10, W8, W10, W11. Add the connections and the platform walks and the car is ahead before comfort even enters it.
Two things the timetable will not tell you. The first train is 05:30 from Tower Gateway 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.
Split three ways the car matches the train, and that is before the bags you did not carry up a staircase. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £65, or about £22 each between three.
Dropping off is the easy half. 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.
Landing back, your driver waits at the set-down bay directly 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 Kensington & Chelsea for this route: SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10, W8, W10, W11. 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.
Buildings with their own set-down are straightforward. 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.
London City Airport front-loads its day, and Kensington & Chelsea feels that at four in the morning. A pre-dawn transfer behaves differently from the same trip at noon.
The roads are the easy part - The whole width of London, but at night the Embankment makes short work of it. It is the first hundred metres that goes wrong, not the next thirty miles. 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.
So we ask for the door, not just the postcode. 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.
The regulars on this run come from: Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the Imperial College campuses, the Kings Road retail trade and the Kensington embassies. Between them they set the shape of the day - an early business bank before 06:00, a family bulge mid-morning in the school holidays, and a long tail of evening departures.
If you are collected near the Natural History Museum, or anywhere else in SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10, W8, W10, W11, it is the same fixed fare. No zone splits, no awkward-address premium. the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea area, one price, quoted before you commit.
Pick the car by the bags, not by the badge. A Saloon at £65 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £85 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £90 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.
£65 in a saloon, £85 in a 6-seat MPV and £90 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 35 min off-peak. The rail alternative is South Kensington 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.
No. The fare is fixed when you book. Traffic, tolls and the hour are our problem, not a line on your bill.
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.
Card, bank transfer or a business account, before or after the journey. A VAT receipt is issued either way.
A 6-seat MPV is £85 and an 8-seater £90. Bigger parties travel in several vehicles routed together.
A day ahead is plenty for a Saloon. Book earlier for an eight-seater or anything before 05:00, because those go first out of Kensington & Chelsea.
That is the off-peak figure for the 15.0-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 1h, mostly because of Knightsbridge and the Embankment in the morning peak. 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 Kensington & Chelsea 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 £65 Saloon fare from Kensington & Chelsea 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.