Event & venue transfers
Fixed at £50 from Waterloo to London City Airport, about 10.8 miles and 30 min on a clear road. The price is locked when you book, not when you travel.
A taxi from Waterloo to London City Airport is £50 in a saloon, £65 in a 6-seat MPV and £75 in an 8-seater. It is about 10.8 miles and 30 min off-peak, or 50 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 £50 |
| MPV | up to 6 passengers, 4 large cases | from £65 |
| 8-seater | up to 7 passengers, 7 large cases | from £75 |
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.
Ask three Waterloo drivers for the best line and you get one answer. The run is the Embankment east to the Limehouse Link, then the A13 and A1020, which is about 10.8 miles and 30 min on a clear road.
One stretch governs the whole trip: the Embankment and Tower Hill in the morning peak. That is where 30 min turns into 50 min, and it is why we publish a peak number instead of pretending every hour looks alike.
The Embankment is almost empty after 22:00 and the trip halves.
Your driver watches the live picture and re-routes without being asked, and the fare does not move when they do.
Here is the alternative, with its real numbers. From Waterloo the public transport route is the Jubilee line to Canning Town, then the DLR to London City Airport, with one change, and it runs about 35 minutes station to terminal. The fare is about 3.40 pounds.
The car is 30 min off-peak and 50 min at its worst, door to door, from anywhere in SE1. That makes the train genuinely quick here - one bag, one person, take it.
There are two catches the journey planner does not show. 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.
The money crosses over at three passengers. Below that rail wins; at three the Saloon works out near enough the same each. The Saloon is a fixed fare of £50, or about £17 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.
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. If you are heading back to Waterloo the driver is in position before you clear the hall.
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 - The Embankment is almost empty after 22:00 and the trip halves. The complications are at your end, not on the road. 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.
The classes differ by boot space far more than by comfort. A Saloon at £50 takes four passengers and two large cases. An MPV at £65 takes six and four large cases. An eight-seater at £75 takes seven and seven large cases.
The mistake is counting seats and forgetting the boot. 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.
Look at who books it and Waterloo explains itself: the South Bank arts venues, St Thomas' Hospital, the county hall hotels and a heavy commuter flow through the terminus. The result is a route that never fully quietens, which is why we cover it around the clock.
If you are collected near the London Eye, or anywhere else in SE1, 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 Lambeth area, one price, quoted before you commit.
We cover the whole of Waterloo for this route: SE1. 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.
£50 in a saloon, £65 in a 6-seat MPV and £75 in an 8-seater. That is the fixed price, agreed at booking.
Door to door the car is about 30 min off-peak. The rail alternative is Waterloo 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.
No. The fare is fixed when you book. Traffic, tolls and the hour are our problem, not a line on your bill.
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.
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 Waterloo.
That is the off-peak figure for the 10.8-mile run and it holds outside the rush. In the peak the same road is 50 min, mostly because of the Embankment and Tower Hill 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 Waterloo 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 £50 Saloon fare from Waterloo 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.