Escorts at London City Airport, from the arrivals door to the last lit tower

The airport occupies the quay between Royal Albert Dock and King George V Dock, on land the port no longer needed. Aircraft come in over the river at a steep angle and climb out close enough to read the livery from the quay, and the terminal is small enough that a traveller with hand luggage can be outside within minutes of landing. Most flights are short hops to European business centres and UK cities, and the runway rests overnight, so there are no small-hours arrivals to plan around.

Two bookings dominate. The arrival evening: you land in the early evening after a day of meetings elsewhere, check in at a dockside hotel, and want company for dinner rather than room service. And the night before a dawn flight: you stay close to the terminal to spare yourself an early drive, and an evening nearby makes more sense than a late one across town. A third, rarer booking is the stopover: one night in London between two short flights, with no wish to go further into town than the dock. All three run best when the flight number and the hotel arrive in your first message.

The three hotels our guests use most stand on Royal Victoria Dock, around ten minutes from the terminal by cab outside the rush. E16 1AL faces the cable car across the dock, while E16 1FR and E16 1AA stand at opposite ends of the conference centre. They appear here because City flyers stay in them, for no other reason; none of them works with us.

If your company has put you in a serviced apartment in Silvertown or on the dock instead, that is booked the same way.

Send the flight number with your first message. Philippa checks the scheduled arrival and sets the companion's time for the right moment after you land, allowing for a bag if you have one. If the flight slips, the time moves with it, provided we hear before she sets off.

City Airport sits in Zone 3, like the docks around it, so her travel is priced separately: the return cab fare comes to you as one figure before anything is confirmed. The ladder does not change for flyers: £250 buys the first hour and £1,800 a full night, with every step between on rates.

18:35. Wheels down from Edinburgh. You wrote to Philippa before boarding; now a one-word update: landed. 18:50. Through the terminal and into a cab. 19:05. Checked in at E16 1AL. 19:45. She arrives, and the working day is over. 20:00. Dinner by the dock, then a walk along the quay beneath the cable car. 23:45. Four hours close at the agreed time: £900, plus the fare you were quoted.

For a seven o'clock departure, the sensible plan is an evening that ends early. Two or three hours from eight, a companion who understands that your alarm is set for five, and a hotel ten minutes from the terminal. Tell us the departure time and Philippa plans backwards from it, so the evening never eats into your sleep.

Check in online, keep the boarding pass on your phone and book the morning cab before she arrives. With those three things settled, the evening has nothing left to worry about.

Nora specialises in arrival evenings and comes from Paddington on the Elizabeth line. Vanessa, also from Paddington, knows the dockside hotels from conference weeks, and Laura, a third Paddington regular, likes to show new arrivals the docks from a cable car cabin.

The ExCeL and Royal Docks page covers the conference district next door. Canary Wharf is about fifteen minutes by cab or one change on the DLR, Stratford is a direct DLR ride north, and Greenwich lies across the river.