Much ink has been spilled on the glam up of New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Long considered one of America’s worst airports, it is now among the best following a massive, $8 billion-plus capital campaign to replace its dated terminal complex.
The HOK-designed Terminal B was completed in 2020, and the Corgan and Gensler-designed Terminal C is on track for completion later this summer. Their collective aim was to create the best customer experience one can in an airport but each terminal gets there with two very different design philosophies.
Terminal B is about a “great” central space and then dispersion. The expansive terminal leads to a centralized concessions area before dispersing travelers to one of the two concourses and eventually their individual gate and flight. Terminal C instead disperses travelers immediately after security to one of four concourses, with designers opting instead for smaller amenity hubs along the course of a travellers’ journey. It’s the latter terminal we look at today.
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“Some of the fundamental differences between the design of the two terminals is driven by the fact of who is in those terminals,” Corgan Principal Jay Liese, who worked on Terminal C, recently told me. “Terminal B is a multi-airline terminal … and by and large [Terminal C] it’s Delta’s terminal. Delta developed the project, it’s a reflection of Delta’s brand, [and] there are some decisions one makes differently based on if it’s a multi-airline solution in a terminal or whether it’s a single dominant carrier in a terminal.”
The space is distinctly Delta. The Sky Club is the main central feature of the terminal with a prominent location above the airside exit from security. The widget, Delta’s iconic logo since 1959, is featured in eye-catching locations throughout the space. And, frankly, the layout appeals to those travelers who make a game of how little time they need to spend at the airport, speeding from curb through security to their gate and flight.
The downside of this airline-led project is that Terminal C is pleasant — and a huge, needed upgrade from the facilities it replaced — but lacks the inspirational civic character of Terminal B. Delta, driven by a need to generate investor returns, simply doesn’t have the same incentives to build civic architecture on the scale of the Port Authority.
Dispersing amenities throughout Terminal C was “a very intentional decision because we believe it accomplishes what are two of the main goals of a successful concession program,” Liese said. “One, there’s enough density at each one of those atrium spaces, or hubs, that a good variety of retail, food and beverage can be provided. And, by putting it at the head of each concourse, than it locates it fairly close to where the passenger is going ultimately. It becomes a more organic part of the customer’s journey to their gate rather than being a stop as you’re being routed through the space.”
But let’s rewind.
The terminal headhouse itself, like that in Terminal B, is a vertical city within a city. A shallow site forced the designers to build up rather than out (or down), with baggage claim, check in, and security all on their own aboveground levels.
“New York City is such a vertical city, because of the scarcity of land,” Liese said. “In some ways we see the three-level headhouse as being a little bit of being a metaphor for New York, and the verticality driven by the scarcity of the land.”
A delightful feature are the three-story high atria on either end of the terminal that feature giant mobiles. Not so delightful is the check-in level with low ceilings — clearly not a space the designers expect travelers to spend much time in. That time, they anticipate, will be spent a level up at security where the double-volume queueing area features a digital mural that changes based on the destination of a soon-to-depart flight.
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“As customers finish the security process and come out onto the concourse side, it’s another double-volume space with great views of the airside, the airplanes, and it really allows passengers to get a sense of where they’re going from there,” Liese said.
That sense, or transparency, of journey is a staple of modern airport design. And its one I very much appreciate. I want to see where I am going, as well as the planes (of course).
From security, travelers proceed to their respective concourses and through those dispersed amenity hubs. Circulation occurs on the terminal’s third level, which is the same as security. That is, importantly, a floor above the concourse departures level.
The walks between security and the concourses are a bit lengthy, especially when I think of doing them with my five-year-old in tow. And, to be clear, I like walking, especially around airports. The distances are, in part, because of the four-pier layout that was necessary due to the site’s shallow width — Terminal C was designed around an existing parking garage and utility plant — and a desire to minimize the taxi distance between the gates and runways.
The terminal also features dual-aircraft taxiways that allow two planes to pass at once and improves airline operations, the latter being a priority for Delta.
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One of the fascinating airside features of Terminal C, and one I did not pick up on until I spoke to Liese, is how travelers enter — aka, exit the escalators — their respective concourses about a third to halfway down their length. That is accomplished by extending the terminal’s circulatory third level out as an atria above the piers before escalators drop travelers down to the departures level.
“From a perception standpoint, it makes those concourses feel not as long and, once you get down on the concourse, your walk distance on the concourse is shorter than in a more traditional scenario where you’re entering the concourse at one end,” Liese said.
Read more of my coverage on LaGuardia’s transformation in The Washington Post.
Notes from the Road
I recently spent a weekend in Atlanta. I had a lovely couple of runs there though, as much as I really enjoy the Beltline — a former railroad corridor that is being converted to a circumferential multi-use trail and future transit line — it’s a victim of its own success, at least on the east side. Jogging there on a weekend afternoon was akin to a game of Frogger. However, on another run through the lovely leafy streets of Decatur, I stumbled upon an abandoned transit gem: the provisions for the unbuilt Tucker-North DeKalb MARTA line! This is the line that would have served Emory University if it was built. A seriously cool #seenonmyrun.
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What I’m Writing
American Airlines is in need of a strategy reset. It alienated lucrative corporate customers with a sales overhaul, and a focus on small US cities isn't paying the dividends it hoped. Read what changes are afoot as the airline, in the words of CEO Robert Isom, builds “back from the hole we’ve created for ourselves.” (FlightGlobal)
Delta Air Lines is set to debut the 50-seat CRJ550 on flights from Salt Lake City this July. Why? Because the dual-class small regional jet, a reconfigured variant of the CRJ700, is the small regional jet of choice for US airlines that have no other choice due to limits in their pilot agreement. (FlightGlobal)
European politics could push Brussels towards approving the Lufthansa Group’s takeover of Italy’s state-owned ITA Airways. Or they could not. Either way, Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Spohr thinks a decision will come before the elections wrap on Sunday, June 9. (The Air Current)
What I’m Reading
Flight tests on Boeing’s 777X, which is already five years late, have “stopped,” Emirates President Tim Clark told Jon Ostrower this week. And the CEOs of All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific, and the Lufthansa Group — all 777X customers — all fear further delays to the program. Boeing it seems is putting all its energy into getting the last two 737 Max variants certified.
A good deep dive into the institutional shift underway in Colorado in transportation planning. A 2019 climate law required the state’s Department of Transportation to take into account the climate impact of any road project but — and it’s an important but — unlike in many other states, it included penalties to the tune of hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars in funding for the agency if it ignored climate implications. The result include cancelling plans to widen I-25 through downtown Denver, and the investment in multiple new bus-rapid transit lines.
What I’m Listening To
United CEO Scott Kirby joined Jon Ostrower and
on The Air Show for a wide-ranging discussion of everything from what airline could go out of business in the U.S. to the need for a third major planemaker and even where United could fly its new Airbus A321XLRs. It’s a good chat and I recommend you give it a listen.America used to have some of the best urban rail systems in the world. Now, well, we don’t. Jake Berman, author of The Lost Subways of North America (great book, highly recommend), joined Roman Mars to discuss a few gleaming examples from Los Angeles’ Red Cars to Vancouver learning from Seattle’s freeway mistakes and Atlanta’s racially charged transit planning. This episode of 99% Invisible is well worth a listen.
Thanks! I'll look forward to visiting LGA sometime soon. All my past trips to NYC have been via JFK, EWR, or Amtrak. We seem to be having a renaissance in airport structures, as the older pre-911 buildings, with their force-fitted security infrastructure, are aging out and being replaced. Looking forward to more of your columns & photos.
With all that money for a refurb they still went with low-ceiling hallways. Sure it's got some nicer cladding and central areas look great but at this point doing anything low ceiling in an airport feels insane.