Which airport into NYC
 

I am planning to travel to NYC in approx. 1 month and I went to the Northwest Airline website to check prices, etc from Minneapolis to NYC. Why is the price about $200 more into LaGuardia? Is something wrong with flying into JFK? I called the airline customer service to ask and the answer was "don't know." Any ideas

Consider also EWR. I cannot explain this $200 more but since we are able to explain how any airlines comes up with some interesting prices, often very low or very high. Why, for instance, it is usually less expensive to fly from Newark to Paris than to Asheville, NC?

One thing we considered when choosing, based on prices being reasonably close or the same was cost of ground transportation to your final location in NYC. LaGuardia is the closest (least expensive) of the three airports into mid-town Manhattan by cab. EWR (Newark) tends to cost more, I think because of out of state location?

JFK is a longer ride into town, but I think you can take the train the whole way as an alternative.

My preference would be to fly into LaGuardia if you are heading into mid-town Manhattan. But that price difference you mentioned is ALOT so keep checking.

Business travelers with meetings in Midtown prefer LGA due to the shorter ride into the city. If you're not in a rush, save the $200 and fly into JFK (cab fare will be a bit higher) or look at EWR as suggested above.

LGA handles less passengers(~26 million/year) & flights than JFK (~42 million passengers/year). But would'nt spend an extra $-)200 to fly through LGA.

Fly into the one with the cheapest fare.

I agree that it's an easier, cheaper, and shorter ride from Laguardia into the city than from JFK, but not worth $200!

Meanwhile if you book into JFK, take consolation that it has a much, much better performance rate of on-time arrivals and departures. We once sat on the ground in Miami waiting for Laguardia to confirm an arrival spot for a regularly scheduled flight. It seems airlines being delayed there has become the norm, not the exception.

LGA is much more convenient to Manhattan, but I agree it's not worth $200 -- unless money is no object.

And Neapolitan is wrong about LGA's on-time performance. From the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, as of February 28, 2006:

LGA - 75.17% arrivals on time (ranked 25th)
JFK - 74.99% (28)
EWR - 74.83% (29)

The departure numbers are similar, with JFK beating LGA by less than 1% in 2/06, and EWR trailing. Certainly none of the airports perform "much, much better" than any of the others.

I forgot to add, regardless of the airport, if you fly in during busy hours when cab lines can be long, you might want to reserve a car service. The cost is about the same as a cab (and you can pay with credit card).

www.dial7.com

I apologize about being misinformed about the ontime arrivals. I guess it
should teach me to listen to a pilot who comes on the intercom and boldly announces that Laguardia has the worst on-time record in the US. I actually believed him. Although admittedly that was about two years ago.

As a side note though, it's interesting that flights from Miami to Laguardia are now scheduled to allow nearly a half hour more than they did a couple years ago. If you pad the time enough, it sure makes it easier to have on time arrivals.

For what its worth, EWR is my favorite for mid town manhattan travel. You can catch a bus directly to mid town for less than $ 15 or you can take the people mover to the NJ transit station and for $12 have a quick 20 minute ride directly to Penn Station at 34th St in midtown. Check either the Newark airport web site or NJ transit for more info.

I tend to go with the cheapest to fly into. JFK is further out of NYC but the benefit is the subway connection from JFK into the city if you are comfortable with NYC subways. LGA is closer but would have to take a taxi. Newark has various transportation options but I tend to rent a car when coming into Newark. Bottom line....whatever is cheapest and most convenient to you!

Neo,
You are correct about JFK being better than LGA when problems arise. The statistics may show that they are comparable for on-time arrivals, but that treats all flights >15min late as late.

What it does not show is that when weather is bad, LGA is subject to huge delays (1-2hrs or more) while JFK will be able to run at near normal schedule.

JFK has more long haul service, and flights will rarely be held on the ground at the origin even if weather is iffy in NY. All flights into LGA are <1500miles (by rule), so when there are problems many flights into LGA will be kept on ground hold.

I would be interested to see more #'s about the length of delays when they do happen.

I ALWAYS FLY INTO JFK IF I HAVE A CHOICE - THE RIDE TO THE CITY MAY BE A FEW MINUTES LONGER BUT THE AIRPORT REMAINS OPEN AND ON TIME MORE THAN LGA OR NEWARK WHICH ARE BOTH A DISASTER IN BAD WEATHER -

Then there was the time we were to fly home out of Laguardia and we awoke to snowfall. I call AA and all flights were "go", but by the time we arrived there the entire airport had shut down. Fortunately as a member of the Admiral's Club I could bypass the lines of thousands and get someone in the Club to rebook me out of JFK which remained open and pretty much on schedule.

By the way, above I didn't mean to imply that only Miami to Laguardia flights are now padded with extra time to allow for fewer "late" arrivals. All their flights are that way. If you look at the schedules it now takes 45 minutes longer to fly from Miami to California than it used to. Do we really think the planes are flying slower? Surprise of surprise when they added that time to their schedules they just happened to improve their "ontime" arrivals.

Since it's April, how about we look at the data for April, 2005?

Cancelled flights:
LGA, 1.78%
JFK, 1.14%
EWR, 1.39%

I certainly don't see a major difference.

(Also in 4/05, all 3 airports had virtually identical on-time percentages between low 72.44%, high 74.06%.)

Fly into JFK to save $200. As someone said, you can get a train if you dont want to pay for a taxi. JFK is 20-30 minutes further than La Guardia.

JFK is 20-30 minutes further than LGA <i><b>under ideal circumstances</b></i>, which are indeed rare.

I fly out of LGA often (almost always USAir &amp; Delta), and JFK even more often (JetBlue), and the trip to LGA almost never takes more than 30 minutes. JFK, however, can be anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours - and sometimes longer.

Obviously, much depends on the time of day. I might pay $200 more to avoid flying into JFK at 8am.

Yep we arrived at JFK last time right about 1 PM. There was a horrible accident on the highway coming in. We had a good hour to study Shea Stadium. Slightly over 2 hours to get into midtown from the airport. The taxi driver was screaming about those required fixed fares. We were delighted about it.