A call to close LaGuardia Airport, but does it make sense?

Ben Mutzabaugh | USA TODAY

New York City's LaGuardia Airport is liked by fliers for its location, but not for much else.

Fliers frequently complain about the close-to-Manhattan airport's aging, cramped and dingy terminals. And, of course, there are comments Vice President Joe Biden made in 2014, when he said LaGuardia's condition made it look like it "must be in some third world country."

Now there's another voice of dissent for LaGuardia, this time via an op-ed that was given space in The New York Times. But this call isn't for a long-overdue upgrade; instead, the author says it's time to close the airport that has served New York since 1939.

"There are precedents for replacing airports close to the center city with modern, more outlying airports. Hong Kong and Denver are two examples; Berlin will soon follow suit," concludes George Haikalis in the op-ed piece.

The Times identifies Haikalis as a civil engineer and transportation planner and "former official at what is now the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council and at New York City Transit."

"New York's importance to America's economy demands a first world vision to shutter this third world airport," Haikalis adds.

The story is creating a buzz in aviation circles. Mostly because industry observers are taking issue with some of the arguments Haikalis makes in his call to close LaGuardia.

The editorial "scores about a zero on the credibility scale," says Bob Mann, an aviation consultant and former American executive who heads the R.W. Mann & Co. aviation consultancy.

The editorial includes several items that has industry observers scratching their heads. Among them:

Move LaGuardia's flights to Newark and JFK

Haikalis suggests that – in part because of airline consolidation – "the much larger Kennedy and Newark airports could accommodate La Guardia's passenger load, by adding more frequent service and using larger aircraft, if the FAA were to lift the caps on the number of flights allowed there."

Critics will point out that the FAA caps were first put into place because those airports had difficultly handling the number of flights airlines were already scheduling. Similarly, at least several of the terminals at Newark and JFK already feel crowded – especially at peak hours of the day.

"The entire region needs more airport capacity, not less," Mann says, noting that it would be a significant challenge to absorb LaGuardia's entire schedule.

Air traffic control gains from "NextGen"

Haikalis writes that JFK, "with its two sets of parallel runways, could handle many more flights, particularly as new air-traffic control technology is introduced in the next few years."

Critics note that JFK already suffers from congestion delays in less-than-ideal conditions. Already, the airport is warning of summer delays because of runway construction projects. And many question whether the new air-traffic control technology – dubbed NextGen – will deliver the expected results. Or that it will be ready by 2020, as is currently mandated.

Mann says that "for all its promise," it remains to be seen just how much "usable capacity" will result from NextGen.

Reliever airports

The Times editorial also suggests Newburgh's Stewart International and Long Island's MacArthur Airport could pick up the slack and help cushion the disappearance of LaGuardia's flight schedule. Respectively, those airports are about 65 and 55 miles away from Midtown Manhattan.

Haikalis writes Stewart, in particular, "has significant room for expansion and can accommodate long overseas flights."

While that's true, it's also true that airline passengers have historically shown a reluctance to regularly fly to or from airports so far from their primary destination. Paris, for example, has a similar distant airport that's located about 55 miles from the center of the city. The Beauvais–Tillé Airport does handle about 4 million passengers a year, but it is served exclusively by charter carriers and by discount carriers like Ryanair, Blue Air and Wizz Air. All major North American and European carriers instead continue to fly to airports closer to central Paris.

Even Denver's new airport – which sits just 25 miles from downtown – is regarded by many fliers as being exceptionally far from town.

As for Stewart – which also maintains some military operations – Mann suggests "the idea that (it) will ever be more than a remote joint facility is a joke."

So, while most expect the call to close LaGuardia to fall on deaf ears, the need to upgrade it will continue to resonate.

Mann acknowledges that LaGuardia is a "historical pocket airport," but says "it does a great job of what it's intended to do" by filling a role as a mostly domestic "origin and destination" airport for New York City.

Now, it's time to finally find a plan to bring the airport's facilities up to modern standards.