Anyone who has ever had to wait for a flight amid LaGuardia Airport"™s low ceilings and narrow corridors was likely delighted with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo"™s announcement last week that the Queens landmark would be rebuilt, almost from the ground up, beginning in 2016.
But some airline industry analysts were less than enthusiastic about the planned $4 billion overhaul.
"I just get nervous with something like this when you have politics driving it," said Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant and president of Boyd Group International.
LaGuardia is the third-largest airport in the New York metropolitan area, after Kennedy and Newark Liberty, both of which are substantially larger and offer extensive international service. Plans to upgrade LaGuardia, a primarily domestic-service airport that served 27 million passengers in 2014, were both fast-tracked and expanded in scope last year after Vice President Joe Biden famously compared its facilities to those of a "third-world country."
On July 27, Biden sat next to Cuomo at the Sheraton New York Times Square as the governor announced that LaGuardia"™s four disparate terminals would be torn down and replaced by a unified terminal.
"It"™s not a plan, it"™s not a sketch, it"™s not a dream, it"™s not a vision," Cuomo proclaimed. "It is actually happening.
Work is expected to begin early next year, following final approval from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The $4 billion price tag is only for construction on LaGuardia"™s Terminal A and its Central Terminal Building, also called Terminal B. More than 50% of that cost will be privately funded, Cuomo said.
In parallel, Delta Air Lines will overhaul Terminals C and D at LaGuardia, both of which the airline controls under lease agreements with the city of New York. Delta hasn"™t revealed how much its portion of the project will cost.
Plans for the overhaul are ambitious. The unified terminal will be located 600 feet closer to New York"™s Grand Central Parkway than the four current terminals in order to increase the length of the taxiway by two miles. The Port Authority said the extra taxi space would make airport operations run smoother, thereby reducing LaGuardia"™s notorious flight delays. Passengers will get from the terminal to their gates via bridges that cross over the taxiway…
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