Talk:LaGuardia Airport

Page move request

I would appreciate it if an admin would please move this article to LaGuardia Airport without "International", which is not part of its name (https://www.laguardiaairport.com). I tried doing this myself, but am getting

The page could not be moved, for the following reason:

A redirect already exists at LaGuardia Airport, and it cannot be deleted automatically. Please choose another name.

Thank you. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I'd personally like to see how this brand new article develops before fussing over the name. Is LaGuardia sufficiently complex to require its own article? For instance, is it used by lots of transit passengers? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I was surprised that it was created, but now that it's here, I feel that it should be named correctly. I've copied some content from New_York_City#LaGuardia_Airport and will try to build up the article. w:LaGuardia_Airport says it's 20th busiest in U.S. and hub for American and Delta. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:42, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, LGA is used by a lot of passengers. I don't know how many of them transit within it, but transportation from the airport could use some explanation. I haven't taken a flight to or from LGA for years, though, because it always seems to cost like $100 more than to fly from JFK or EWR. Otherwise, I'd fly there every time because it's the closest to Manhattan's East Side by far. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, well I've done the move.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

"Sleep" listings

What criteria are being used to decide what's listed? Also, on "Nearby", really, every neighborhood from Astoria to Flushing is nearby and easily accessible by bus. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

As of now, I added only the two hotels listed at https://www.laguardiaairport.com/at-airport/airport-hotels. I clarified the existing Nearby text. Not sure that it's useful. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't East Elmhurst be a section of Elmhurst, if anything, not Jackson Heights? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

WV heirarchy puts Elmhurst under Queens/Jackson Heights. I'm not very invested in this article. Feel free to adjust as you see fit. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:26, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Does LGA qualify for an article?

I appreciate the effort editors have already put in to this brand-new article, but I'm not sure it qualifies as an exception per the guidelines at WV:WIAA.

• "It should serve as a hub with a large number of connecting flights." From the statistics at [1] (page 46), only 13.7% of passengers at LGA are connecting passengers, compared to 23% at Newark and 27% at JFK.
• "It must have several food and shopping options available." The article currently lists every restaurant/bar in the airport (as opposed to just the places worth recommending), and it's obvious that there isn't much to choose from. I take this as further evidence that this is mainly an origin/destination airport, not one where most travellers are likely to spend a lot of time or need a lot of help getting around.
• "Singularly huge and complex airports the size of small cities." It doesn't look like the Get around section will ever be more than a sentence or two. I doubt there will be much to add to Flights regarding check-in, security, or baggage claim. The "detailed" list of terminals and airlines provides no more information than what travellers already get when they're at the airport. There have been mixed opinions about listing off-airport hotels in airport articles, but in this case I'd agree that such listings should go in Queens/Jackson Heights, leaving this article's Sleep section basically empty. (In fact, the report mentioned above adds that LGA is "the most efficient airport in the world, handling more passengers per acre per year than any other airport". In a sense, then, doesn't that imply that of all airports, LGA is the one with the least to write about, relative to how busy it is?)

I'll admit it does clean up New York City nicely by removing the complex ground transportation options, which were visually cluttered and difficult to read in such a large article. And there is a nice symmetry to having articles for all 3 of the major NYC airports, even if this one wouldn't otherwise qualify.

So, let's get this discussion over with, before we put more time and effort into this article. I'm leaning towards no (delete and merge, or really just revert NYC to what it had before) but I'm obviously on the fence. --Bigpeteb (talk) 19:32, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

You may have seen I raised a similar concern above, only with much less forensic detail than yours. Not knowing anything much about this airport, I found user:Nricardo's answer satisfying to a point (LGA being a domestic hub for two important airlines), but not entirely (only the 20th-busiest airport in the United States). This reminds me quite a lot of Stansted Airport, which is a very busy origin/destination airport for intracontinental flights but not much of a transit hub; that article probably shouldn't have been created in the first place, but now it has it would be a counterproductive hassle to unmake it. So count me as also on the fence, and persuadable by either side.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

If the airport is mainly for getting to and from New York and comparatively few passengers transit here, then I'd say La Guardia doesn't merit its own article. But as the article has been created, and it's a reasonably busy airport, I don't have a problem with keeping the article. Ypsilon (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I based the list of eateries on https://www.laguardiaairport.com/at-airport/shops-restaurants-and-services. However, there are many places that are "temporarily closed" due to the pandemic: https://maps.laguardiaairport.com/. With the recent and ongoing redevelopment/rebuilding at LGA, I believe that its importance and popularity will grow after we get past these difficult times. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: While I've made several contributions to this article, I'm not sure that I have the patience to add much more. There's much that can be added (retail, amenities, nearby "airport" hotels), so the article can grow to "useful" or "guide". I'm hoping that @LukeSkywalker26:, who first created the article, comes back to help build it up. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work! Several of the "Eat" listings, particularly those of chains, will need to be edited per the don't tout guidelines. I agree that since the airport is going to be drastically renovated and enlarged by the end of the year, if it stays on or ahead of schedule, it would be rather senseless to delete this article, although I might have advised holding off on it till the expansion was complete if Mr. Skywalker had asked my opinion beforehand. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:13, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Ahh, knowing that a lot of restaurants are closed due to COVID-19 is important! (I'm surprised—and impressed—that their website is so up-to-date that it omits ones that are temporarily closed.) I don't know if we have a policy regarding such listings, but given how slowly WV gets updated, I'm inclined to include such listings on the assumption that most of them will re-open soon (hopefully later this year). An Eater article lists restaurants that were open during the pandemic (as of November 2020) and includes a few we haven't listed yet, and there are other articles with recommendations such as from Zagat and NYC on the Cheap. Combined with other improvements such as turning the large bullet list of transit options into subsections, I think there's just enough merit to keeping this article. Even if it's on the fence for meeting our guidelines, at least it declutters New York City. --Bigpeteb (talk) 19:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bigpeteb: Thank you for the recent improvements. I had wanted to convert to subway bullets myself, but got too lazy. Regarding terminals, https://www.laguardiaairport.com/flight/airlines indicates that only JetBlue is at A and that Frontier uses C. Is LGA's site out of date? --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 20:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

On listings for temporarily closed eateries, I might suggest holding off, because it's still possible they'll never reopen. These are very hard times for restaurants in New York. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Nricardo: Wikipedia has updated info on which airline is at which terminal as recently as December 23, 2020. We can use that to update this page. But this is exactly why I usually argue against having such a list in WV's airport articles. It's utterly useless encyclopedic trivia. Travellers literally do not care, except that they need to know where to go... which is why there is always ample signage at the airport that will be more up-to-date than WV, or travellers can simply tell their taxi/bus driver which airline they're flying, and the driver will know where they need to go. --Bigpeteb (talk) 22:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bigpeteb:I must be looking at the wrong place on WP. I'm not seeing that Frontier is at Terminal A. Maybe I'm different from other people, but I prefer to know before I set out which terminal my flight leaves from. Heck, I even like to know where I'll land at arrival airport. It helps in planning. I'm also one of those weirdos who likes to show up early and find something to do at the airport rather than cutting it fine and making a mad dash for the gate at the last minute. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I'm certainly in the minority; most of our airport articles do list out the airlines and terminals. And yes, I have to admit it is useful in some cases. Just in updating this article, I realized that some buses don't stop at Terminal A (and one route only stops there), so travellers would need to know which one they're going to. Moreover, many airports are just badly designed ;-) and require you to figure out which of 8 terminals you have to go to, or to leave security to transfer between terminals.

Re Frontier: WP currently says "On October 27, 2018, Alaska Airlines ended all service from LaGuardia Airport, leaving JetBlue as the terminal's only tenant [in Terminal A]" and "As of December 23, 2020, Delta, Delta Connection, Frontier, Spirit, and WestJet operate out of Terminal C". --Bigpeteb (talk) 02:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ One thing about LaGuardia though is the most of the amenities, including the lounges, are pre-security. And that is different from what most travellers may be used to. And of course, that also means you need to leave yourself enough time to go through security when you leave the lounges. The dog2 (talk) 05:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Usage statistics

The following text was removed from Understand, but I believe it gives travellers a good idea of the scale of usage of LGA. Thoughts?

“ In 2019, LaGuardia hosted 373,356 flights serving 31.1 million passengers: 28.9 million domestic and 2.2 million international. Almost 15,000 people work at LGA. ”

--Nelson Ricardo (talk) 11:11, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree, as it shows people statistics of the airport --LukeSkywalker26 (talk) 14:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

"host" seems a weird verb choice to me there... Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I have no objection to including these two sentences, although how many people work at the airport might be less relevant to readers/travelers than how many passengers it serves. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Other than bragging about how big the world's largest and busiest airports are, I think it's a bit encyclopedic for most other airports. I doubt most readers have much sense of the scale of it. (Is 31 million passengers a lot?) It might be better to give different stats, such as its rank among US airports, or what percentage of traffic among all NYC airports goes through LGA. --Bigpeteb (talk) 18:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure, fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Metro North stop at 125th St.

Swept from User talk:Bigpeteb

A propos this edit: it's at Park Ave., not Lexington. I don't remember whether the M60 stops at Park Ave.; do you? But even if not, I think we need to mention that Metro-North is at Park, so hapless people don't pay their subway fare and at length discover they're in the wrong place and may have missed their train. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I had to do a little more digging. Weirdly, it looks like the bus stops at both Lexington Ave and Park Ave outbound from LGA, but stops at Madison Ave and Lexington Ave inbound to LGA. See w:M60 (New York City bus)#Stops, and also a map at [2].

It's only 500 feet between avenues, so it might be equally fast to get off a stop early and walk the remaining distance! :-D But sure, I see your point; as long as we're listing a bunch of separate stops, this one might as well be listed separately, too. --Bigpeteb (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Cool. I think we should specify inbound and outbound, because it could be confusing to use a slash between two different avenues, as opposed to Lenox/Malcolm X Ave., which are two names for the same avenue. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Edit. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:42, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Open stores in the Buy section

Can you check and see if any of the stores on the Buy section are still open and up to date? Thanks. --LukeSkywalker26 (talk) 15:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think anyone reading this works at LaGuardia. I may be living closer to LaGuardia than you, but it would be no easier for me to check than for you. So I think you nominate yourself for this task. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Luke, many of the businesses have phone numbers or websites listed on the interactive map. https://maps.laguardiaairport.com/ --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 21:12, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

New Banner

I think it's time we think of a new banner. The current one is of the old terminals, back when LaGuardia was cramped and dingy. It's much nicer now with the new terminals having opened, and I was pleasantly surprised when I flew in a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera for that trip but if someone has nice photos to upload, that would certainly be much appreciated. The dog2 (talk) 18:11, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@SHB2000: Do you think you can make a banner from this image: [3]? The current banner is outdated, and was taken before the upgrading. This image is more representative of the current LaGuardia, which is much more pleasant to use than before the upgrading. The dog2 (talk) 20:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Done. File:LaGurardia Airport new banner.jpg SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 21:28, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks. The dog2 (talk) 00:18, 21 July 2022 (UTC)