The “Shorter Than The Day” sculpture at LaGuardia Airport
“If I blindfolded you… and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you’d think, ‘I must be in some third-world country.’”
That pronouncement was made by then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who was the latest frequent traveler to comment on conditions at one of America’s busiest airports, a little over ten years ago, in early February 2014. [Editor’s note: The thought of Joe Biden merrily blindfolding someone in the dead of night and dragging them to the world’s various airports to prove a point about infrastructure does sound plausible.]
This week, ACI World’s Airport Service Quality Awards named that “third-world airport” one of the two best airports in North America in the 25-to-40 million passengers per year category.
It was only just a few years ago that LaGuardia was beset by delays, complaints about lost baggage, and shoddy customer service. Now it not only has the appearance of one of Europe’s or Asia’s finest airports but offers service to match.
It was just four years ago when “Saturday Night Live” skewered (or rather, sushi’d) the airport for its variety of ills. The hilarious skit placed comedian John Mulaney portraying a cashier at LaGuardia Airport while Chris Redd, Pete Davidson, and other familiar “SNL” regulars cycle through the eight-minute musical experience. Pete Davidson surprises seemingly everyone in the terminal by wanting to purchase sushi, technically a spicy tuna roll, at LaGuardia, causing Mulaney to summon the Phantom of LaGuardia, portrayed by Kenan Thompson.
Redd chimes in, saying, “You’re buying sushi at LaGuardia Airport? Have you lost your damn mind?”
In a comment that predates the start of the pandemic, Cecily Strong, as the sushi chef, making one pine for John Belushi in the golden years of SNL, as she warns that “you’d honestly be so much better off… eating a Wuhan snake” before Wuhan became as well-known as it is today.
“I like to wait at LaGuardia… Lots of Delays at LaGuardia,” sings Mulaney to the tune of “America” from “West Side Story,” with Thompson chiming in, “Watched a man die at LaGuardia.” Even then Mayor Bill de Blasio is mentioned, being blamed for virtually all of the airport’s ills and this is all in the first four minutes of the eight-minute skit.
As highly-rated as it is, the airport isn’t without its flaws. It lacks train access – then Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan for the $2.1 billion AirTrain, which had first been announced in 2015, was scrapped in 2023 by Governor Kathy Hochul in favor of buses, something that can be confusing to arriving visitors – and some travelers are unhappy with the extremely long hikes to far-flung gates at the new Delta Air Lines terminal.
The first section of the new LaGuardia, the Eastern Concourse in the Central Terminal, also known as Terminal B, opened in December 2018 after three years of construction. The $4 billion Central Terminal project was officially completed in January 2022 and Delta unveiled the first of four concourses in its new terminal at LaGuardia in December 2019.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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