London City Airport & adverse weather

Veloce

Looks like London City Airport has had some disruptions due to fog over the past few days - as a result there has been flight cancellations or diversions.

I am just wondering the specific reason why London City has such disruption - is it to do with the fact there is high rise buildings around and the need for some visual flight rules or is the instrument approach different to other major airports?

Or is it the fact that the fog is generally worse in the city centre?

L1011

Only has CAT I ILS I believe. SE England has relatively bad fog in general

JCX BXC

Without any knowledge of the airport operations, I'd say the minima for the CAT I approach is quite high too, I know at Cork RWY35 requires 750m IRVR iirc due to shortened approach lights (minima is normally 550m for ILS CAT I) , which I assume there would be a similar situation at LCY.

Any sort of fog seems to prevent anything landing at LCY from experience, a fine mist can cause a few go arounds too, although that's usually due to low cloud.

Chris_5339762

LCY has a steeper glide slope from other airports as well so that probably makes things worse. A very useful airport, but very disruption prone.

Lustrum

Minimum RVR for both runways is 1500m, and decision heights depend on the aircraft type - cityflyers Embraers have recently got theirs lowered to 300ft on R09, and 400ft on R27, whereas Cityjets are 360ft and 460ft respectively. On top of that, the fact that the whole south east of England is prone to fog doesn't help. It can be a bit of a nightmare if LCY is fogged in, and so is every other airport in the London area - next thing you know, you're diverting to Manchester!

Chris_5339762

I saw a Glasgow diversion one inbound to LCY from France. Horrifying.