It’s official: City Airport really is the only airport in London
It turns out the City's favourite airport really is the only airport in London – after one of its advertising claims was upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
London City Airport was criticised for being misleading after its assertion in a radio ad that it was "the only airport actually located in the city of London".
Here's the ad in full:
Business or pleasure, time is on your side when you fly from London City Airport. Fly with British Airways or Flybe from Edinburgh, or from Glasgow with British Airways, to the only airport actually located in the city of London. Get closer to the heart of London. From landing to the City or the West End in under 40 minutes. London City Airport: fast, punctual and actually in London
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But the airport defended itself against the claims, saying the ad meant city as in "inner London", rather than city as in "the Square Mile".
It also pointed out other airports serving London couldn't claim to be in the city of London, considering their postcodes (Heathrow is in TW6, which doesn't count as "inner London").
The ASA said it agreed: "The primary message of the ad was the time that could be saved by flying from or to London City Airport," it said.
"While we understood that no airports were in the central London local authority district of the City of London, and that London City Airport was not the only airport within Greater London (Heathrow being the other), we noted that it was the most central airport servicing London, and the only one that might reasonably be described as being within ’inner’ London. For that reason, we concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead." In other words: haters gonna hate.