LaGuardia Airport
LaGuardia Airport, colloquially known as LaGuardia or LGA, is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City, United States, situated on the northwestern shore of Long Island, bordering Flushing Bay. Covering as of 2026, the facility was established in 1929, and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after Fiorello H. La Guardia, a former mayor of New York City.
The airport accommodates airline service primarily to domestic, but also to limited international destinations., it was the third-busiest airport in the New York metropolitan area behind Kennedy and Newark airports, and the 19th-busiest in the United States by passenger volume. The airport is located directly to the north of the Grand Central Parkway, the airport's primary access highway. While the airport is a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, commercial service is strictly governed by unique regulations including a curfew, a slot system, and a "perimeter rule" prohibiting most nonstop flights to or from destinations greater than.
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, LaGuardia was criticized for its outdated facilities, inefficient air operations, and poor customer service metrics. In response, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2015 announced a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of the airport's passenger infrastructure, which was completed in January 2025.
History
Original site
Prior to human development, the coastlines of Bowery Bay and Flushing Bay converged at a natural point that comprised the eventual northern shoreline of Newtown, Queens. By 1858, the area was partially contained by the estate of Benjamin Pike Jr. based around what is today known as the Steinway Mansion, which was soon purchased and consolidated with other property by William Steinway. In June 1886, Steinway opened a summer resort development known as Bowery Bay Beach on the peninsula. Originally featuring a bathing pavilion, beach, lawns, and boathouse, the resort was renamed North Beach and later expanded with the addition of Gala Amusement Park. By the turn of the century, North Beach's German-influenced development drew comparisons to Brooklyn's Coney Island. Its fortunes soon turned, however, as Prohibition in the United States and war-related anti-German sentiment presented significant challenges to the resort's profitability. These factors, combined with increased industrialization and pollution of the Queens waterfront, made the area untenable as a leisure destination, and it was abandoned at some point in the 1920s.North Beach Airport
In April 1929, New York Air Terminals, Inc., announced plans to open a private seaplane base at North Beach later that summer. The facility was christened on June 15 and initially featured a concrete plateau connected to the water by a amphibious aircraft ramp, with the former resort converted to a passenger terminal. Opening-day festivities for the new airport were attended by a crowd of 5,000, and included air races with Curtiss Seagulls and Sikorsky flying boats, a dedication address by Borough President George U. Harvey, and the commencement of airline service to Albany and Atlantic City by Coastal Airways and Curtiss Flying Service. One month later, service to Boston was launched using Savoia-Marchetti S.55 aircraft operated by Airvia.Glenn H. Curtiss Airport
By 1930, the airport had been improved with hangars and night-illuminated runways, and it housed seaplanes of the recently reorganized New York City Police Department Aviation Unit. On September 23, the site was renamed Glenn H. Curtiss Airport in honor of the New York aviation pioneer who had died one month earlier. In a ceremony that same day, representatives from the forerunner to Trans World Airlines announced their bid to establish the nation's first transcontinental airmail route to the airport using Ford Trimotors; in attendance were Eleanor Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh.On August 27, 1931, the airport welcomed the arrival of the world's then-largest airplane, the Dornier Do X, after a 10-month transatlantic journey. Over 18,000 people visited the huge flying boat on its first day of static display, and it remained in the city for nine months. While the Do X was ultimately a commercial failure, its presence demonstrated the viability of long-distance air travel terminating a mere 20-minute drive from Manhattan. Likewise, this centralized location also enabled the airport to host hourly air taxi services between Newark and Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field that September.
While Curtiss Field was quickly becoming a magnet of aviation, Newark Airport remained the primary terminal for New York City-bound passengers and mail. The city's lack of its own central airport lingered as the 1930s wore on, especially as discussion grew regarding the commercial viability of privately operated fields.
Municipal Airport 2
The 1934 election of mayor Fiorello La Guardia ushered in a new era of public investment in New York City's airports. LaGuardia had been a long-time aviation advocate; in a 1927 editorial penned while serving as a U.S. representative of New York, he criticized both the federal and state governments' slow progress in establishing municipal airports in the city. Although several potential sites had been identified, LaGuardia mainly pushed for the transformation of Governors Island into a combined airport and seaplane base. "No greater monument to the life and activity of the Republic can be imagined," he wrote, painting it as a teeming transportation hub at the extreme center of the city. Military and shipping concerns eventually shut down the proposal, but LaGuardia and industry leaders maintained consensus that New York City needed a central "express" airport to complement the farther-flung Floyd Bennett Field, which it completed in 1930.While the Governors Island proposal was being litigated, LaGuardia also saw development potential in Curtiss Airport. Under his administration, the city entered a five-year contract with its owners, agreeing to lease the field for $1 per year, with an option to purchase the property for $1,500,000. The airport was officially dedicated Municipal Airport 2 on January 5, 1935. At a key ceremony that day, LaGuardia also received a signed lease from Trans World Airlines for hangar space at Floyd Bennett Field—making it the first major US airline to serve New York City directly. While years would pass before TWA arrived at North Beach, LaGuardia had begun fulfilling one of his ultimate goals - extracting New York City from "the humiliating position of seeing all its passengers and mail traffic go to a nearby state."
LaGuardia Airport
The initiative to develop the airport for commercial flights began with an outburst by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia upon the arrival of his TWA flight at Newark Airport – the only commercial airport serving the New York City region at the time – as his ticket said "New York". He demanded to be taken to New York, and ordered the plane to be flown to Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field, giving an impromptu press conference to reporters along the way. He urged New Yorkers to support a new airport within their city.American Airlines accepted LaGuardia's offer to start a trial program of scheduled flights to Floyd Bennett, although the program failed after several months because Newark's airport was closer to Manhattan. La Guardia went as far as to offer police escorts to airport limousines in an attempt to get American Airlines to continue operating the trial program.
During the Floyd Bennett experiment, LaGuardia and American executives began an alternative plan to build a new airport in Queens, where it could take advantage of the new Queens–Midtown Tunnel to Manhattan. The existing North Beach Airport was an obvious location, but much too small for the sort of airport that was being planned. With backing and assistance from the Works Progress Administration, construction began in 1937, it is on the waterfront of Flushing and Bowery Bays in East Elmhurst, and borders the neighborhoods of Astoria and Jackson Heights. Building on the site required moving landfill from Rikers Island, then a garbage dump, onto a metal reinforcing framework. The framework below the airport still causes magnetic interference on the compasses of outgoing aircraft; signs on the airfield warn pilots about the problem.
Because of American's pivotal role in the development of the airport, LaGuardia gave the airline extra real estate during the airport's first year of operation, including four hangars, which was an unprecedented amount of space at the time. American opened its first Admirals Club at the airport in 1939. The club took over a large office space that had previously been reserved for the mayor, but he offered it for lease following criticism from the press, and American vice president Red Mosier immediately accepted the offer.
The airport was dedicated on October 15, 1939, as the New York Municipal Airport, and opened for business on December 2 of that year. The modest North Beach Airport was transformed into a 550-acre state-of-the-art facility at a cost of $23 million to New York City. Not everyone shared La Guardia's enthusiasm for the project; some thought it was a $40 million waste of money. However, the concept of air travel itself captivated the public, and thousands of people went to the airport to see the planes take off and land in exchange for a dime. After two years, these fees and the parking they generated had already brought in $285,000. In addition, a total of $650,000 was made annually from non-travel-related sources such as restaurants. The airport was soon a financial success. A smaller airport in nearby Jackson Heights, Holmes Airport, was unable to prevent the expansion of the larger airport, and closed in 1940.
Newark Airport began renovations, but could not keep up with the new Queens airport, which TIME called "the most pretentious land and seaplane base in the world". Even before the project was completed, LaGuardia had won commitments from the five largest airlines to begin using the new field as soon as it opened. Pan Am's transatlantic Boeing 314 flying boats moved to La Guardia from Port Washington in 1940. During World War II, the airport was used to train aviation technicians and as a logistics field. Transatlantic landplane airline flights started in late 1945; some continued after Idlewild opened in July 1948, but the last ones shifted to Idlewild in April 1951.
Newspaper accounts alternately referred to the airfield as New York Municipal Airport and LaGuardia Field until the modern name was officially applied when the airport moved to Port of New York Authority control under a lease with New York City on June 1, 1947.
LaGuardia opened with four runways at 45°-degree angles to each other, the longest being. Runway 18/36 was closed soon after a United DC-4 ran off the south end in 1947; runway 9/27 was closed around 1958, allowing LaGuardia's terminal to expand northward after 1960. Around 1961, runway 13/31 was shifted northeastward to allow construction of a parallel taxiway, and in 1965–66, both remaining runways were extended to their present.
The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 283 weekday fixed-wing departures from LaGuardia: 126 American, 49 Eastern, 33 Northeast, 31 TWA, 29 Capital, and 15 United. American's flights included 26 nonstops to Boston and 27 to Washington National. Jet flights started on June 1, 1964.
Although LaGuardia was a large airport for the era in which it was built, it soon became too small. Starting in 1968, general-aviation aircraft were charged heavy fees to operate from LaGuardia during peak hours, driving many LGA operators to airports such as Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, New Jersey. The increase in traffic at LaGuardia and safety concerns prompted the closure of nearby Flushing Airport in 1984. Also in 1984, to further combat overcrowding at LGA, the Port Authority instituted a Sunday-thru-Friday "perimeter rule" banning nonstop flights from LaGuardia to cities more than away; at the time, Denver was the only such city with nonstop flights, and it became the only exception to the rule. Later, the Port Authority also moved to connect JFK and Newark Airport to regional rail networks with the AirTrain Newark and AirTrain JFK, in an attempt to make these more distant airports competitive with LaGuardia. In addition to these local regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration also limited the number of flights and types of aircraft that could operate at LaGuardia.
LaGuardia's traffic continued to grow. By 2000, the airport routinely experienced overcrowding delays, many more than an hour long. That year, Congress passed legislation to revoke the federal traffic limits on LaGuardia by 2007. The reduced demand for air travel following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City quickly slowed LaGuardia's traffic growth, helping to mitigate the airport's delays. Ongoing Port Authority investments to renovate the Central Terminal Building and improve the airfield layout have also made the airport's operations more efficient in recent years.
The FAA approved instrument departure procedure "Whitestone Climb" and the "Expressway Visual Approach to Runway 31". When adopting the Expressway Approach, when the aircraft crosses the intersection of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Long Island Expressway in Long Island City, it turns northeast on 85° and follows the Long Island Expressway, after reaching Flushing Meadow Park, the aircraft executes a 135° left turn over the Flushing Bay and joins the final approach to the runway 31. When adopting Whitestone Climb, aircraft circle over Flushing and head to Whitestone Bridge on the north upon takeoff from runway 13. Such patterns aim to reduce the noise, avoid the traffic of the JFK Airport, and maximize the air-traffic capacity in the New York TRACON. LGA and JFK approach airspaces borders around the Belmont Park.
In late 2006, construction began to replace the Wallace Harrison-designed air traffic control tower built in 1962 with a more modern one. The tower began operations on October 9, 2010. A replica of the 1962 control tower was installed in a decorative garden at the airport in 2025, to preserve the memory of its unique design.
On August 12, 2009, Delta Air Lines and US Airways announced a landing slot and terminal swap in separate press releases. Under the swap plan, US Airways would have given Delta 125 operating slot pairs at LaGuardia. US Airways, in return, would have received 42 operating slot pairs at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Crystal City, Virginia, and be granted the authority to begin service from the US to São Paulo, Brazil, and Tokyo, Japan. When the swap plan was complete, Delta Shuttle operations would have moved from the Marine Air Terminal to Terminal C, and Terminals C and D would have been connected together. US Airways Shuttle flights would have moved to the Marine Air Terminal, and mainline US Airways flights would have moved to Terminal D. The deal would allow Delta to create a domestic hub at LaGuardia.
The United States Department of Transportation announced that it would approve the Delta–US Airways transaction under the condition that they sell slots to other airlines. Delta and US Airways dropped the slot swap deal in early July 2010, and both airlines filed a court appeal. In May 2011, both airlines announced that they would resubmit their proposal of the slot swap to the US DOT. It was tentatively approved by the US DOT on July 21, 2011. The slot swap received final approval from the US DOT on October 10, 2011.
On December 16, 2011, Delta Air Lines announced plans to open a new domestic hub at LaGuardia Airport. The investment was the largest single expansion by any carrier at LaGuardia in decades, with flights increasing by more than 60%, and destinations by more than 75%. By summer 2013, Delta increased operations to 264 daily flights between LaGuardia and more than 60 cities, more than any other airline at LaGuardia.
In November 2019, Southwest Airlines ended service to Newark, primarily due to the Boeing 737 MAX groundings, poor performance, and inadequate facilities, and consolidated its New York–area operations to LaGuardia and Islip.