LaGuardia Airport

LaGuardia Airport is the smallest of the three major New York City airports by land area but one of the busiest in the world per-acre, handling roughly 33M passengers (2024) across 188 weekly routes to 87 destinations on 18 airlines. LGA sits in the Queens neighborhood of East Elmhurst on the shore of Flushing Bay, just 13 km (8 mi) east of Midtown Manhattan — making it by a substantial margin the closest commercial airport to the core of New York City and the preferred option for business travelers on domestic routes. The airport is predominantly a domestic facility; long-haul international traffic is concentrated at JFK, with LGA's international service limited to short-haul flights to Canada and the Caribbean plus a handful of flights to Bermuda and the Bahamas. LGA serves as a principal U.S. hub for Delta Air Lines (operating the majority of daily departures from the newly rebuilt Terminal C), a major focus city for American Airlines (Terminal B), and a base for United, Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit, and Frontier. A sweeping $8B reconstruction program completed in stages between 2018 and 2024 replaced the original 1964 Central Terminal Building with a new Terminal B and delivered Delta's new Terminal C — together adding a modern concourse layout, AirTrain-ready infrastructure, and significantly expanded retail and gate capacity. Two intersecting runways at 7,002 ft (2,134 m) each impose tight operational constraints, making LGA one of the most slot-controlled airports in the United States. LGA sits at 21 ft (6 m) elevation on a peninsula extending into Flushing Bay, with runway approaches that cross over the East River and occasionally require precise curved-approach procedures. The airport has been subject to the FAA's High-Density Rule since 1969, which limits scheduled movements to contain delays — even with these constraints, weather-related and ATC-driven delays at LGA are among the highest in the U.S. system. The planned AirTrain rail link to the Mets–Willets Point subway was cancelled in 2021, leaving LGA the largest U.S. airport without a direct rail connection.