3 Links I Love: LaGuardia’s New Gates, Oscar Talks, Pittsburgh’s Problems

LGA - New York/La Guardia, Links I Love, PIT - Pittsburgh, United

This week’s featured link:

New terminal designed to be exact opposite of usual LaGuardia – Runway Girl Network
They had me at the headline.  LaGuardia opened up the first phase of its terminal redo.  It’s still a long road until all the work is done, but at least now, the passenger experience for some travelers will be better.

Two for the road:

For United’s Oscar Munoz, the turnaround is a journey – Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle sat down with United’s CEO to talk shop.  It’s a very high-level interview, and Oscar doesn’t get into as much detail as I’d like, but I’m always a sucker for an interview no matter what.

After series of setbacks, CEO of Pittsburgh International Airport isn’t panicking – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh had been on a tear, and now it’s hit a few roadblocks.  None of these are particularly concerning to me.  It’s just the way the game gets played.  

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11 comments on “3 Links I Love: LaGuardia’s New Gates, Oscar Talks, Pittsburgh’s Problems

  1. I never thought I’d actually be excited to go to LGA but those new gates look like a huge improvement. This renovation can’t get done soon enough.

  2. the PIT CEO may not be panicking, but the Post-Gazette reporter sure seems to be. I can just hear him saying “Oh my God! How will anyone get to Paris?!” Somebody doesn’t understand the nature of the airline industry these days . My own experience with reporters is that while they may be educated in journalism, with the exception of a few people at the very tip-top they haven’t the desire or time to educate themselves on subject matter. I have especially fond memories of dealing with a reporter a few years ago from a major news organization who couldn’t understand that plutonium has nothing to do with a certain Disney character. It’s also my experience that if they don’t fully understand the information they get from an interview they’re liable to fill in the gaps with whatever they think will sell the most newspapers. Just one more reason I’m blissfully retired.

      1. No, I’m not joking. It’s been enough years ago that while I can sort of remember the guy’s face, I can’t recall for certain which org he was with. I’d rather not create any false news, so I won’t guess.

  3. I understand that “it’s how the game is played” with regard to PIT but I’m still not a fan of subsidies to airlines to serve an airport. Paying $1.5M to Qatar because the city/region failed to deliver is a huge failure IMO and should cost the CEO of that airport her job. The OneJet and WOW deals are/have blown up too. All that for what? An “I’m not worried” fluff piece? The passenger volume growth is likely primarily due to the macro economy and not what/who the airport is courting.

  4. Doesn’t LGA have an artificial perimeter rule imposed on it? Maybe the place wouldn’t be the shit show that it is if planes could go wherever they want and if it wasn’t so flooded with RJ’s.

    1. Matt D – It does, however, the terminals today can’t handle more passengers. Once the new terminals are done, I’d expect we’d see a bigger push by some airlines to kill the perimeter rule.

  5. So, instead of spending hours in a dumpy terminal waiting for your delayed flight at LGA, you get to spend hours waiting in a nice terminal for your delayed flight. Progress!!. I still think they should have addressed the runway issues before anything else.

  6. Frontier airlines has created a new meaning to “Here today, gone  tomorrow” It seems rather than carefully researching a potential market, they use the ‘ spaghetti against the wall” technique

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