New York’s city airport
LaGuardia opened in 1939, championed by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who reportedly refused to get off a flight in Newark because his ticket said New York. The Art Deco Marine Air Terminal, built for Pan Am’s flying boats, still stands. In the 2010s, a US vice president called the old terminals ‘third world’, and the airport was completely rebuilt with new terminals that opened between 2020 and 2022.
What you’ll see on the live cam
LaGuardia handles almost entirely short and medium-haul domestic flights, plus routes to Canada and the Caribbean. That means a constant stream of narrowbodies and regional jets, with Delta and American running large shuttles to Boston, Washington and Chicago.
Runways
LGA has two runways that cross each other: 4/22 and 13/31, each only about 2,100 metres long. Both end at the water, and some approaches follow the Flushing Bay shoreline or curve in over Queens.
Best times to watch
- Weekday mornings and evenings: business shuttle peaks.
- Thunderstorm days: holding patterns, delays and dramatic skies.
