Five reasons why New York's LaGuardia Airport is the worst — and some fixes

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[h=4]Five reasons why New York's LaGuardia Airport is the worst — and some fixes[/h]New York's LaGuardia Airport is the worst in the country, whether measured in the miserable howls of crowded, stranded travelers or the ledgers of government studies.

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Charisse Jones of USA TODAY looks at some of the most common gripes passengers have about LaGuardia Airport and how the new plans may alleviate them. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans for new airport construction on Monday. Michael Monday, USA TODAY


Karen Barker, center right, and her daughter, Grace Barker, 13, wait in line to see if they will be able to board a rescheduled flight to Texas at LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 26, 2015.(Photo: Seth Wenig, AP)


New York's LaGuardia Airport is the worst in the country, whether measured in the miserable howls of crowded, stranded travelers or the ledgers of government studies.
The disjointed, half-century-old terminal building features a warren of concourses with inadequate gate seating, restrooms or power outlets for 27 million travelers a year. Because bad weather often adds another burden to the busy runways and congested taxiways, LaGuardia has one of the worst records among major airports for flight delays and cancellations.
"LaGuardia deserves its own circle of hell," said Henry Harteveldt, a travel-industry analyst with Atmosphere Research. "It is proof that we as people will put up with an enormous amount of unpleasantness for a degree of convenience."
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Vice President Biden rekindled interest for rebuilding the airport in February 2014 by comparing the conditions to a Third World country.
"If I took you and blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you'd think, 'I must be in some third-world country,'" Biden said. "It's embarrassing, and it's stupid. It's stupid."

Vice President Joe Biden, left, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, acknowledge applause at the Association for a Better New York luncheon, in New York, July 27, 2015.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Richard Drew, AP)

Biden gave powerful voice to what travelers lamented for years. By that point, surveys such as Zagat's rated LaGuardia the worst airport at least four years in a row, finishing last in almost every category.
"The best thing probably to do is to knock it down and start over," CEO Tim Zagat told the New York Daily News in 2010.
That may finally happen under plans Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled Monday with Biden at his side. The airport has been knocking down hangars dating to the 1930s and is now taking aim at the central terminal, which dates from 1964.
"LaGuardia is just a Mad Men-era relic that lacks any mid-century charm," Harteveldt said.
For now, five problems that Cuomo and others hope to remedy include:

• LaGuardia has several fragmented terminals, which the plans call for replacing with a single architecturally unified building. The airport, built decades before the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, has limited room for security checkpoints. For now, "the concourses are too small and the waiting areas are jam-packed," said Brett Snyder, who writes an aviation blog called The Cranky Flier.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"Some airline lounges are outside security, which makes them far less useful than they should be."
• In contrast to the sparkling skyscrapers downtown, the airport looks its age other than renovated terminals C and D. "It's really crazy in a city as important as New York has<span style="color: Red;">*</span>such an antiquated airport," said George Hobica, founder of airfarewatchdog.com. "The central building was built in the age of the propeller, not the jet." The crowded concourses have no room for shops or restaurants that invigorate modern airports. Fliers find it drab and run down. "Even 'great' airports have pockets within them that look like 'The Land That Time Has Forgotten,' but pretty much the entirety of the LaGuardia central terminal building owns that title," said Robert Mann, an airline analyst with R.W. Mann & Co.
• Despite its proximity to downtown, LaGuardia lacks a subway station to make access easier. "You basically have to take a cab from mid-town Manhattan," said Hobica, who avoids LaGuardia in favor of John F. Kennedy airport. "The buses are crowded and infrequent and it takes forever." The overhaul would move the terminal 600 feet closer to Grand Central Parkway, which rings the airport, to allow room for nearly 2 miles of new taxiways. Cuomo has proposed a future train to link the airport to the subway.
• Sitting along the East River, LaGuardia also suffers more than its share of challenging weather. Wind and fog are common. Superstorm Sandy flooded the low-lying airport with an estimate 100 million gallons of saltwater in October 2012, shutting the airport for two days and disrupting travel plans for 250,000 passengers.
• The congestion and bad weather combine to give travelers some of the worst delays and cancellations in the country. LaGuardia ranks 29th out of 29 major airports for on-time arrivals (70%) and cancellations (4.48%), according to Transportation Department statistics. Departure delays rank near the bottom, too.

Analysts warn that the construction won't cure the limits of runways and weather, and rebuilding the airport while it continues to operate will make conditions worse than they are now. "Safe to say that LaGuardia will have the 'worst' title for years to come," Mann said.
Passenger access will get worse during the construction, and airlines will face congestion on ramps and at gates, he said.
"It is a very, very brave, audacious move," Harteveldt said. "We have never seen where an active airport will be demolished and rebuilt entirely while kept in operation."

People wait at LaGuardia airport in Queens, N.Y.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Jennifer S. Altman for USA TODAY)

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