London Heliport reports strongest upturn in movements since 2008

The London Heliport at Battersea, the capital city’s only commercially licensed heliport, achieved its best year for activity since 2008 with over 10,500 movements recorded for the year ending 31st March, 2016. A high proportion of growth was attributable to business movements. There was an uptick especially, in private users during 2015, including the prolific weekly departures from King Power’s Agusta A109, complementing Leicester City FC’s ascension to top flight football. Significantly, around 20% of movements were inter-lining with business jet flights, according to General Manager Simon Hutchins. The top airports for connections last year included London Stansted, London Luton, London Oxford Airport and Farnborough. The heliport also marked its 500,000th movement at the end of last year as it prepared to take local vicinity VFR air traffic control inhouse, with its own staff. NATS provide the wider London area service from whom the heliport receives inbound flights and transfer outbound traffic. This was completed in February 2016 with a view to improving the service and becoming more responsive. VFR ATC staffing had been previously outsourced.