It’s a summer of milestones for LaGuardia Airport’s long overdue facelift.
Beginning next week, travelers will be able to use seven new gates and a newly renovated concourse at LaGuardia’s Airport’s Terminal B Concourse, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday.
The opening is the latest step in the ongoing $8 billion dollar project to overhaul the airport and follows last month’s opening of Terminal B’s newly designed Departures and Arrivals Halls.
“With the opening of this new concourse, LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B is hitting two major milestones in one summer and moving closer to its full transformation into a 21st Century travel facility,” Cuomo said. “LaGuardia Airport is going to be the first new airport in the United States in 25 years, and we’re building it while still operating the old airport. Travelers coming to New York should expect nothing less than a world-class experience, and that is what we are delivering with this modernization project.”
The new western concourse and its gates, which were revealed a month ahead of schedule during a ribbon cutting ceremony featuring The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Director Rick Cotton, CEO of LaGuardia Gateway Partners Stewart Steeves, Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry (D-East Elmhurst, LeFrak City, and parts of Corona, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Rego Park) and Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee. The open to the public on August 5.
“This new concourse will increase our borough’s global competitiveness by offering travelers a welcoming airport experience filled with all the amenities that the world’s airline passengers have come to expect,” said Lee.
The concourse has 55 foot high ceilings with floor to ceiling windows, an indoor park, a children’s play area, and a designated American Airlines services desk. It also features spacious touchless bathrooms, a pet relief area, and family and nursing restrooms.
Once completed by the end of 2021 with a target opening date in 2022, the Western Concourse will have 17 new gates in total. It will primarily serve American Airlines and will have a designated American Airlines service desk and an American Airlines Admiral Club.
It will also have an elevated pedestrian bridge that connects the Western Concourse with the new Arrivals and Departures hall just like the Eastern Concourse, which opened in December 2018, has. The dual pedestrian skyways will be the first at a major airport in the U.S.
“It is gratifying to see the continued progress of the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport. No longer Third World but first class.” said Aubry.
