Great Video Explaining How Airports Are Designed. I’m Not Convinced They Got The New LaGuardia Right

The point of an airport is to get somewhere. The best airports are the ones get are easiest to get to and get through. They make your travel more efficient, rather than adding to an already cumbersome and stressful experience. That has little to do with how much high-end retail there is (airports offer expensive shopping for their benefit, not for yours).

That means the best airports are close-in to the city center, and once you get there security is near the entrance and gates are near security. There’s enough taxiway space and runway capacity to handle flights, too, minimizing delays.

For local passengers the most important things are:

  • How easy is it to get to and from the airport? That’s a function of both distance from city center and connectivity.
  • Once there, how quickly can you get through security and to your gate?
  • How congested is the airport facility? Does it have wide enough taxiways and enough runway capacity – in other words does it have the necessary throughput?


New York LaGuardia Central Terminal

For connecting passengers, how quick and easy is it to transfer between gates? How efficiently can an airport handle connecting baggage? And of course throughput matters to connecting passengers too — perhaps even twice as much since they’re both arriving and departing by air.

Everything else is secondary. That’s why complaints about New York LaGuardia’s aging facility just didn’t matter to me. The roof leaks? Call a roofer. Ceilings are low? Who cares, you’ll be in the sky soon.

LaGuardia’s problems are:

  1. Getting there by means other than car. Public transport options are bad. (That’ll still be true even after renovations are done.)
  2. Throughput. New York airspace is congested (and FAA has been terrible about fixing this) and LaGuardia needs another runway, which would require pushing building into the water.


Aircraft at the LaGuardia Central Terminal

New terminals? Who cares. In fact by the time LaGuardia’s renovation is done, central security is going to make things worse. It’ll be more time from curbside to get.

The principal designer of the new LaGuardia Central Terminal walks through what went into the project. This is a great video worth watching.

Remember that the new design doesn’t get more flights. The airport is slot restricted. Better use of space is nice, so is fewer bottlenecks as planes try to get out to a runway. I’m not convinced the new LaGuardia though is better. The designer suggests it’s faster to get to gates in the new design, but no one that traveled to the airport in the past will believe that.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. The new headhouse is built closer to the GCP, so has to be literally further from the gates 🙂 will be curious how the new central security is set up.

    Regardless, it is nicer…can’t reach up and touch the ceiling anymore. Presumably it won’t leak on a rainy day. New lounges are gorgeous. Actually has good F&B options now. People at the boarding gate won’t spill out into the main walkway.

  2. In other parts of Manhattan, even more congested sections they have right away lanes for buses. They should consider have one going to the N train line; the most direct line to Manhattan and or making it an express bus making it a little more quicker to the N line and 4/5 Line

  3. Have you actually visited the new terminal at LGA? The fact that the customer experience is significantly better overall is a plus. Both United Club and Maple Leaf Lounge are after security and on the mezzanine level overlooking the terminal similar to SNA and HKG, with UC surprisingly offering better food options than MLL. Better food options than Auntie Anne’s pretzel dogs (which are delicious, but options are better). Queued up lines that don’t block the walkway. The long walk to the designated Uber/Lyft pickup spot is still problematic, but it’s the same issue that LAX and SFO are dealing with concurrently.

    When the final phase of the project is completed, the airport will be connected to the NYC subway (which is facing a NIMBY challenge and a long ride to Manhattan, but at least an option is available) and LIRR, plus there will be a new water taxi option to Manhattan, which all are better than the buses.

  4. I am about to do one of the things I HATE people doing. But, PLEASE, proofread your articles before posting them. The second sentence “The best airports are the ones get are easiest to get to and get through” — and that’s not the only one.

    OK, I’ll shut up now.

  5. In fairness to the designers of the “new” LGA, they did a very good job with the hand they were dealt. Squeezed between a major highway and Long Island Sound, they had the near-impossible task of completely re-engineering the place without interrupting service and without expanding the airport’s claustrophobic footprint. Expanding out into the water is not really a practical option, since the two existing runways are right on the water and would have to be, in effect, picked up and moved north, which would require the airport to shut down for years.

    Also it is misleading to imply that the new layout will not improve throughput. Yes, NYC airspace remains a problem, but the new LGA layout will almost completely remove the chronic apron area bottlenecks that used to cause planes to waste vast amounts of time just trying to get in and out of gates.

  6. Gary,

    There are a few ways that the new airport will address some of the operational concerns that you say matter most, besides just putting lipstick on a pig. Will they double throughput, no. But a couple of things will be better. First of all, for connecting passengers, there will no longer be separate security for each finger. Right now, if you land at the D gates and need to get over to the C gates, you can either walk over and go through security again, or wait several minutes to go down the sketchy stairway to the shuttle bus that requires approximately 57 employees to guide it the 100 yards between concourses. Now you’ll just be able to walk straight over.

    Also, as you mentioned, the constrained runway situation won’t change. However, there are often times when it’s not the runway that is at capacity, but the gates. Between the concourses are “alleys” that can basically only handle either a plane going out or a plane coming in. If two planes just pushed back, any planes that just landed will have to wait for them both to be disconnected from the tugs, start their engines, do a few checks, and then taxi out. Then, while those planes finally get to taxi in, any planes ready for departure can’t push back until they’re in. During high departure/arrival times, airplanes inbound will sometimes be issued airborne holding instructions not because the runways are saturated, but because there is so much arrival/departure traffic that the gates and alleys are saturated. If this new design with the bridges and easier ingress/egress from the gates alleviates some of that, it will increase the airport’s capacity for traffic. Again, it won’t double it, but it might increase it 20% during the busiest hours.

  7. The airport efficiency for the planes may increase.
    Airport effect of long walks pulling your carryon will not in the new LGA
    The best airport in DC is DCA not IAD, despite separate security x 4 and small foot print
    Ad even that can be improved very easily by a redesign of people flow especially separation of post security which aleady exists between A and B but not B-C-D

  8. Completely agree. I can understand why people criticize LGA, but I think those are mostly infrequent flyers who equate the flying experience with flashy airports, restaurants, and shopping. I love that I can get through security and to the gates in a few minutes. When I land, same thing. I’m out the door in minutes.

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