LONDON VAUXHALL DEALERS

Now Collier wants to step that growth up a gear. Armed with a mandate from London City's owners, he plans to expand the 130-acre site's runway area and invest in new stands as part of a drive to reach 7m passengers annually by 2016.

"Like any airport around the globe, we saw a fairly precipitative decline in passenger numbers in 2008/9, but have seen that recover. Passenger numbers were up 7pc in 2011, back over the 3m mark, and by 5.5pc so far this year," he says. "We see the potential for strong organic growth. What we've got to do is put in place an investment and infrastructure plan that will facilitate that."

Reports suggest that will involve new investors coming in and current infrastructure fund owners GIP and Highstar Capital diluting their holdings. GIP, which also owns major stakes in Gatwick and Edinburgh, has form in syndicating out its holdings and Collier won't discount a similar move at London City. "They're leaving their options open. There's no reason to believe they wouldn't be willing to put equity in," he says. "My brief was to come in and help the business realise its potential. A sale or the introduction of new investors will be elements of what we look at." Collier claims the Olympics will put London City in the shop window – it sounds like that's exactly where the owners would like it to be.

There's certainly a positive story to tell. Anyone who's used London City will know it's a world away from Heathrow's out-dated, over-crowded halls. At 2pm on a weekday afternoon London City arrivals feels more like a library than an international airport. The baggage track is 29 yards long – at Beijing it's more like 80 miles, Collier points out.

The airport works to a 20-10 blueprint – it should take a passenger no more than 20 minutes from arrivals to the departure gate and no more than 10 from landing to the taxi rank. "Many airports are struggling because of their age – they're retro-fitting like crazy to prolong their lives. It's like open-heart surgery as flights are landing and taking off around you," Collier says, pointing out that London City was only opened in 1987. "We're using facial recognition to track people through the airport – how they shop, rest, what toilets they use. It allows you to design an airport according to what the passenger wants."

There are drawbacks. Planning restrictions mean the airport – which generates revenues of about £85m and employs 550 staff – has to operate peculiar hours. It's shut from 9.30pm to 5.30am and from midday Saturday to the same time on Sunday. The short runway – and there is room for only one – also limits the size of the aircraft able to use the airport. Plans to increase the number of stands from 18 to 23, build a new runway area to increase 'movements' from 36 to 41 an hour and introduce a new generation of aircraft to increase passenger numbers are all a must if the airport is going to continue to compete.

In many ways, its success thus far has been not only a consequence of its location – just minutes from Canary Wharf – but also the wider failings of London's infrastructure. The capital's lack of airport space and capacity constraints of its biggest hub Heathrow are well documented.

Where does London City sit in the debate over the opposing calls for a third runway at Heathrow, a new Thames estuary airport or the loosening of planning restrictions at Gatwick? "The big issue for London is a lack of capacity and that's most acute at Heathrow. Larger aircraft can only do so much and we see a role for London City in helping with those capacity problems. But clearly we're not going to solve the issues of the London airport system.

"The great tragedy is that London is an important part of the UK economy but it's missing opportunities, they're sliding by. And the point that might well be missed is that these opportunities don't come back," he says, pointing for example to last month's decision by Comac, the Chinese aerospace group, to base its European headquarters in Paris instead of London. "You have to believe that any government will have the economy at heart and will carry out an open and objective review of what is needed."

For now, Collier thinks London City is well placed. "We have the capacity here, we're in the right place and we're in the right City," he says. So small in this case isn't all bad? "My mother used to tell me that great things come in small packages. I've lived by that over the years."