Event & venue transfers
Newham to London City Airport runs to roughly 3.6 miles and 15 min off-peak. We quote £30 and that is the number you pay, whatever the traffic does.
A taxi from Newham to London City Airport is £30 in a saloon, £35 in a 6-seat MPV and £40 in an 8-seater. It is about 3.6 miles and 15 min off-peak, or 25 min 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 £30 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £35 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £40 |
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.
Ask three Newham drivers for the best line and you get one answer. The run is a couple of miles on the A112 and A1020 to Hartmann Road - the airport is inside the borough, which is about 3.6 miles and 15 min on a clear road.
The part worth planning around is the Connaught Bridge and the A1020 when a ship movement closes the road. That is where 15 min turns into 25 min, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
Barely a journey at any hour; this is the shortest airport transfer in London.
If the road turns, the driver turns with it. The price you were quoted is the price either way.
Here is the alternative, with its real numbers. From Newham the public transport route is the DLR from Canning Town straight to London City Airport, with no change at all, and it runs about 12 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 2.90 pounds.
The car is 15 min off-peak and 25 min at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in E6, E7, E12, E13, E15, E16. That makes the train genuinely quick here - one bag, one person, take it.
Two details matter more than the headline minutes. The first train is 05:30 from Canning Town 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 £30, or about £10 each between three.
The departure leg barely needs explaining. 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.
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 - Barely a journey at any hour; this is the shortest airport transfer in London. 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 tell us the entrance when you book. 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 Newham for this route: E6, E7, E12, E13, E15, E16. 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.
The regulars on this run come from: ExCeL exhibitors, Westfield Stratford, Newham University Hospital, the Royal Docks towers and London City Airport staff. 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 ExCeL London, or anywhere else in E6, E7, E12, E13, E15, E16, 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 Newham 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 £30 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £35 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £40 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.
£30 in a saloon, £35 in a 6-seat MPV and £40 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 15 min off-peak. The rail alternative is Stratford 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.
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.
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.
A 6-seat MPV is £35 and an 8-seater £40. 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 Newham.
That is the off-peak figure for the 3.6-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 25 min, mostly because of the Connaught Bridge and the A1020 when a ship movement closes the road. 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 Newham 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 £30 Saloon fare from Newham 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.