American Airlines inaugurated the new eastern concourse at New York LaGuardia airport on saturday, the first piece in a nearly $8 billion airport upgrade project.
Fort Worth, Texas-based American, whose flight AA4645 to Columbus was the first to depart at 05:59 local time, Air Canada and Southwest Airlines are using the facility, with United Airlines due to join in mid-2019, says terminal B redevelopment concessionaire LaGuardia Gateway Partners.
The eastern concourse is one piece of a larger rebuild of the popular but aging New York City airport. The project will see all of terminals B, C and D replaced by 2026. LaGuardia Gateway Partners is responsible for the $4 billion terminal B project, and Delta Air Lines for the $3.9 billion terminals C and D project.
Derided by many for its run-down condition, LaGuardia was famously compared to airports in a «third world country» by then US vice-president Joe Biden in comments about the country’s infrastructure in 2014.
«This is like the opposite in every respect,» says Stewart Steeves, chief executive of LaGuardia Gateway Partners, comparing the new concourse to the old LaGuardia central terminal on a walk-through of the facility with FlightGlobal today.
Everything from the soaring curtain glass walls that let in natural light to varied seating options that give passengers the opportunity to «personalise» their experience, and family-friendly restrooms are different, he says.
“For too long, LaGuardia airport has offered its passengers a substandard experience,» said Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates LaGuardia, in a statement. «[The] opening of the first new concourse shows the Port Authority is committed to improving the passenger experience with world-class facilities.»
In addition to the LaGuardia works, the Port Authority is in the midst of redevelopment projects at both Newark Liberty and New York John F Kennedy airports. A new terminal 1, which will replace terminal A, is under construction at Newark and due to begin opening in 2021, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled a $13 billion redevelopment plan for JFK in October that could be complete by 2025.
LaGuardia is the smallest, but arguably the most popular due to its convenience to Manhattan, of the three New York area airports. It handled 30.9 million passengers during the year ending in September, compared to 46.7 million at Newark and 62.6 million at JFK, Port Authority data shows.
The terminal B project at LaGuardia will replace the facility and its four concourses, which opened in 1964, with a new 78,040m2 (840,000ft2) terminal and two concourses with 35 gates. Today, 11 of the 17 gates on the eastern concourse opened…
