New York’s closest airport to Manhattan was once a national embarrassment. Eight billion dollars later, LaGuardia is one of the finest airports in America, and the one you use for every US domestic leg.
Here is how to make LGA work for you, not against you.
The airport the British flyer leaves from, not arrives at
LaGuardia is the New York airport you fly from rather than into. Sitting in Queens just eight miles from Midtown, closer to Manhattan than either JFK or Newark, it handles domestic flights almost exclusively. A long-standing perimeter rule limits most departures to within roughly 1,500 miles, so there are no transatlantic services at all, and LaGuardia holds the curious distinction of being the busiest airport in the United States with no direct route to Europe.
For the UK business traveller, then, this is not a doorway home but the airport you use for an onward flight to Boston, Chicago, Atlanta or Washington, or the one you fly back into New York on from elsewhere in the States. If you are crossing the Atlantic first, you will be doing that through Heathrow or Gatwick and arriving at JFK or Newark. Knowing LaGuardia well is simply part of mastering the American portion of a business trip.
What makes it worth a guide of its own is its astonishing reinvention. Once a byword for delays and squalor, famously likened to a third-world airport by a sitting US president, it has been rebuilt almost from the ground up in a programme costing some eight billion dollars. It now boasts two gleaming new terminals that have won international awards as among the best in the world. Run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, LaGuardia is living proof that an American airport can be transformed. Everything you need is laid out on the official LaGuardia Airport website, but the practical reading for a British flyer is below.
Get this right first: which terminal?
LaGuardia is straightforward to read, and your onward airline sets the building you need. The vast new Terminal B, opened in stages and repeatedly named among the best new terminals anywhere, is the home of American Airlines and a long list of others, including United, JetBlue, Southwest, Air Canada, Frontier and Porter. The equally new Terminal C, a four-billion-dollar building, belongs to Delta Air Lines, which runs a major operation here. The historic Terminal A, the original 1939 Marine Air Terminal and a charming art deco survivor, now handles only a handful of flights.
So for the British traveller connecting onto a domestic flight, the rule is simple: American and most others at Terminal B, Delta at Terminal C. Unlike the old LaGuardia, the new terminals are spacious, light and easy to navigate, with the cramped concourses and endless queues of the past largely designed out. The two main terminals are linked landside, and the airport is compact by American standards, so moving around is far easier than it once was. As ever, confirm your terminal on your booking, and if you are being dropped off, make sure your driver comes to the right one. (If the three-letter shorthand still trips you up, our piece on the secret language of airport codes is a useful primer.)
The fast way in: getting to Manhattan
LaGuardia’s closeness to Manhattan is its defining advantage, and its lack of a direct rail link is its one weakness. A long-planned AirTrain was abandoned, so the public-transport route into the city combines a bus and the subway. The Q70 LaGuardia Link, a free express bus, runs from the terminals to the Jackson Heights and Roosevelt Avenue subway station, where the 7, E, F, M and R trains carry you into Manhattan for the price of a single subway ride. The M60 bus offers an alternative to Upper Manhattan and Harlem. The combination is cheap, at little more than the subway fare, and reliable, though it involves a change and is slower than a cab for a Midtown destination. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority sets out the routes in full in its official LaGuardia transit guide.
For most business travellers, though, the taxi or ride-share is the natural choice here, precisely because LaGuardia is so close to the city. A yellow cab to Midtown takes around twenty to forty minutes depending on the traffic, with a metered fare that, once tolls and the customary tip are added, usually lands in the region of forty to fifty-five dollars, less than from the more distant JFK or Newark. Ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft run from designated pick-up areas at demand-based fares. For a quick trip into Manhattan, the cab from LaGuardia is one of the better-value airport runs in the New York area, and the obvious choice for the time-pressed.
A word on hiring a car: rarely the right call for a Manhattan trip, where parking is costly and a congestion charge now applies to driving into the busiest part of the city. A hire car earns its place only for journeys out of town. If you are being collected, the new terminals have well-organised pick-up arrangements, but the driver must still come to the correct building.
The part the UK traveller should know: security, not immigration
Here is the detail that changes everything about LaGuardia. Because it handles no international flights, the British traveller meets no immigration here. You will have cleared US Customs and Border Protection at your transatlantic gateway, JFK, Newark or wherever you first landed in the United States, and a domestic flight to or from LaGuardia involves no further border check.
That is worth understanding, because it means a LaGuardia departure is governed only by security, run by the Transportation Security Administration. The new terminals have spacious, modern security halls that have largely banished the notorious queues of old, but at the morning and evening peaks, when the domestic banks are busiest, it still pays to allow time.
Two programmes are worth knowing. TSA PreCheck gives a faster, lighter-touch lane, letting you keep your shoes, belt and laptop in place, and it is included if you hold Global Entry, which UK citizens can obtain via the CBP trusted-traveller scheme for British nationals. For the frequent US traveller it is well worth having. CLEAR, a paid identity-verification service, moves you to the front of the queue and is available at LaGuardia too. The practical advice is simple: there is no immigration to worry about, but TSA PreCheck, ideally via Global Entry, makes the security side quick and easy.
Where to wait well: the lounges worth the walk
LaGuardia’s transformation extended to its lounges, which are now a world away from the cramped rooms of old. At Terminal C, the Delta Sky Club is one of the airline’s flagship lounges, a large, light-filled space with an outdoor Sky Deck terrace overlooking the apron, open to Delta premium passengers and members. It is a genuinely pleasant place to wait. At Terminal B, American Airlines operates its Admirals Club and the more exclusive Chelsea Lounge for premium passengers, and the terminal is also home to an American Express Centurion Lounge for eligible card holders, along with other premium spaces.
The practical advice is the usual: know what your ticket or card opens, and that it sits in the terminal you are flying from, before you build your timings around it. A Delta premium ticket or membership opens the Sky Club at Terminal C; an American premium ticket opens the Admirals Club at Terminal B; and a premium American card may open the Centurion Lounge there. For a domestic connection with time to spare, or simply to escape a busy concourse, a lounge at the new LaGuardia is a comfortable, productive place to wait.
Beyond the lounge: dining and shopping
Dining was central to LaGuardia’s reinvention, and the new terminals carry a genuinely good food-and-drink offer built around New York names. Both Terminal B and Terminal C feature outposts of well-known city restaurants, proper sit-down dining, local specialities and the order-from-your-seat technology common in modern American airports, so a meal before a domestic flight here is now a pleasure rather than a penance. The contrast with the old airport, whose food was as tired as its terminals, could hardly be greater. If you have lounge access you can weigh the lounge catering against a table outside it, though at the new LaGuardia the restaurants are well worth seeking out.
Shopping follows the American airport pattern, with a tidy line in the practical, the technology, the bookshop and the pharmacy, alongside New York branded gifts for a last-minute present. For the working traveller the value is the familiar safety net: the charger or cable you forgot, replaceable airside. The discipline anywhere is to do your eating and buying in your own terminal and keep an eye on boarding, but at the compact, well-designed new LaGuardia both are easier than at the sprawling international airports, and the walk to the gate is rarely long.
Sleeping close to the gate, or not
LaGuardia is unusual among the New York airports in that there is little reason to stay at the airport itself, because the city is so close. A handful of hotels sit nearby in Queens, among them familiar chain names a short taxi or shuttle from the terminals, which serve for a very early domestic departure or a late arrival when you simply want to be close by. But the airport’s eight-mile proximity to Manhattan, and the twenty-to-forty-minute taxi ride, mean that for almost any business trip the natural choice is to stay in the city itself and treat LaGuardia as the quick, close airport it is, taking a cab out in the morning.
The choosing logic is therefore the simplest of any New York airport. For the rare case of a dawn domestic flight where every minute counts, a nearby Queens hotel keeps the morning short. For everything else, a Manhattan hotel is both more useful and, given the short taxi run, barely less convenient. This is the great advantage of the closest airport to the city: you can base yourself where the business is and reach the airport quickly when you need it.
The trickiest hour: connecting and the domestic leg
For the British business traveller, LaGuardia is almost always part of a connection rather than a destination in itself, and understanding how US connections work makes it simple. The crucial point is that you clear immigration and customs only once, at your first airport of entry into the United States. If you arrive transatlantic at JFK or Newark and then fly on to or from LaGuardia, you do not clear the border again, because the domestic leg is treated as an internal flight. Where an itinerary routes you through another US city before New York, you will have cleared customs there, reclaimed and re-checked your bags, and your arrival into LaGuardia is then a simple domestic one, with bags delivered to the ordinary carousel.
The practical guidance is therefore lighter than at the international gateways. A domestic connection involving LaGuardia needs only a sensible buffer for the change, with no border check to allow for, though you should account for the time to travel between airports if your transatlantic flight and your LaGuardia flight use different ones. JFK and LaGuardia, for instance, are a taxi ride apart across Queens. Within LaGuardia, the compact new terminals make any connection quick. As ever, TSA PreCheck via Global Entry speeds the security side, and hand luggage only keeps a multi-leg trip simplest.
The regular’s playbook: LaGuardia, mastered
LaGuardia rewards the traveller who understands its place in a US trip: not a transatlantic gateway but the close, quick, transformed airport you use for domestic flights and for getting back into New York. There is no immigration to navigate here, so the groundwork is lighter than at JFK or Newark, and the airport’s eight-mile closeness to Manhattan makes the taxi the easy default. Lean on TSA PreCheck for the security side, stay in the city rather than at the airport, and enjoy the fact that the old LaGuardia, once the worst airport in America, is now among its best.
Ten habits of the seasoned LaGuardia flyer:
- Remember LaGuardia is domestic only. You clear US immigration at your transatlantic gateway, not here.
- Know your terminal: American and most others at B, Delta at C.
- For Midtown, take a taxi. It is the closest airport, around forty to fifty-five dollars with tolls and tip.
- For a budget trip, the free Q70 bus connects to the subway at Roosevelt Avenue.
- Budget for tipping, fifteen to twenty per cent, as part of every fare and bill.
- Use TSA PreCheck, ideally via Global Entry, to speed the security side.
- Seek out the new lounges. The Delta Sky Club at C has an outdoor Sky Deck.
- Stay in Manhattan rather than at the airport; the city is close and quick.
- Connecting from another airport? Allow travel time between JFK or Newark and LaGuardia.
- Enjoy the rebuild. The new terminals are among the best in America.
The worst airport in America has become one of its best, and the frequent flyer through New York is the beneficiary. Master these points and LaGuardia becomes the most convenient piece of a New York business trip.
