JFK, LAGUARDIA & NEWARK LIBERTY, FLY TO NEW YORK

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of Claire Fontaine, who has flown from Montréal to New York City to spend some days with her. While The Grandma was waiting for Claire, she has been reading about New York airports.

Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied the First Conditional.

More info: First Conditional

John F. Kennedy International Airport (IATA: JFK, ICAO: KJFK, FAA LID: JFK), colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK, is the main international airport serving New York City.

The airport is the busiest of the six airports in the New York airport system, the 13th-busiest airport in the United States, and the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America. More than ninety airlines operate from the airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations in all six inhabited continents.

JFK is located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, 26 km southeast of Midtown Manhattan.

The airport features six passenger terminals and four runways.  

JFK is a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, and it is the primary operating base for JetBlue. JFK was also formerly a hub for Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, National, Northwest, and Tower Air.

The facility opened in 1948 as New York International Airport and was commonly known as Idlewild Airport. Following U.S. President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport as a tribute to the 35th President.

John F. Kennedy International Airport was originally called Idlewild Airport (IATA: IDL, ICAO: KIDL, FAA LID: IDL) after the Idlewild Beach Golf Course that it displaced.

It was built to relieve LaGuardia Field, which had become overcrowded after its 1939 opening. 

In late 1941, mayor Fiorello La Guardia announced that the city had tentatively chosen a large area of marshland on Jamaica Bay, which included the Idlewild Golf Course as well as a summer hotel and a landing strip called the Jamaica Sea-Airport, for a new airfield. Title to the land was conveyed to the city at the end of December 1941. Construction began in 1943, though the airport's final layout was not yet decided upon.

More information: John F. Kennedy International Airport

LaGuardia Airport (IATA: LGA, ICAO: KLGA, FAA LID: LGA) is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City.

Covering 280 ha in its present form, the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

The airport primarily accommodates airline service to domestic, and limited international, destinations.

As of 2019, it was the third-busiest airport in the New York metropolitan area behind John F. Kennedy and Newark airports, and the twenty-first busiest in the United States by passenger volume. 

While the airport is a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, commercial service is strictly governed by unique regulations including a curfew, a slot system, and a perimeter rule prohibiting most nonstop flights to or from destinations greater than 2,400 km.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, LaGuardia was notable for having obsolete and dirty facilities, inefficient air operations, and poor customer service metrics. 

Responding to these criticisms, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) in 2015 announced a multibillion-dollar reconstruction of the airport's passenger infrastructure, which is expected to be complete by 2025.

Prior to human development, the coastlines of Bowery Bay and Flushing Bay converged at a natural point that comprised the eventual northern shoreline of Newtown, Queens.

By 1857 the area partially contained the estate of Benjamin Pike Jr., which was soon purchased and consolidated with other property by William Steinway.

In June 1886, Steinway opened a summer resort development known as Bowery Bay Beach on the peninsula. Originally featuring a bathing pavilion, beach, lawns, and boathouse, the resort was renamed North Beach and later expanded with the addition of Gala Amusement Park.

By the turn of the century, North Beach's German-influenced development drew comparisons to Brooklyn's Coney Island. Its fortunes would soon turn, however, as Prohibition in the United States and war-related anti-German sentiment presented significant challenges to the resort's profitability. These factors, combined with increased industrialization and pollution of the Queens waterfront, made the area untenable as a leisure destination, and it was abandoned at some point in the 1920s.

In April 1929, New York Air Terminals, Inc. announced plans to open a private seaplane base at North Beach later that summer. The 81 ha facility was christened on June 15 and initially featured 0.81 ha concrete plateau connected to the water by a 120 m amphibious aircraft ramp, with the former resort converted to a passenger terminal.

Opening-day festivities for the new airport were attended by a crowd of 5,000, and included Air Races with Curtiss Seagulls and Sikorsky flying boats, a dedication address by Borough President George U. Harvey, and the commencement of airline service to Albany and Atlantic City by Coastal Airways and Curtiss Flying Service.

One month later, service to Boston was launched using Savoia-Marchetti S.55 aircraft operated by Airvia.

More information: LaGuardia Airport

Newark Liberty International Airport (IATA: EWR, ICAO: KEWR, FAA LID: EWR), originally Newark Metropolitan Airport and later Newark International Airport, is an international airport straddling the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union County, New Jersey. 

It is jointly owned by the cities and leased to its operator, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The airport is located 4.8 km south of Downtown Newark and 14 km west-southwest of Manhattan in New York City. 

It is near the Newark Airport Interchange, the junction between Interstate 95 and Interstate 78 (both components of the New Jersey Turnpike), as well as U.S. Routes 1 and 9, which has junctions with U.S. Route 22, Route 81 and Route 21. 

 

AirTrain Newark connects the terminals with the Newark Liberty International Airport Station. The station is served by NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor Line and North Jersey Coast Line. Amtrak's Northeast Regional and Keystone Service trains also stop at the Newark Liberty International Airport station.

The City of Newark built the airport on 28 ha of marshland in 1928 and the Army Air Corps operated the facility during World War II. 

The airport was constructed adjacent to Port Newark. After the Port Authority took it over in 1948, an instrument runway, a terminal building, a control tower and an air cargo center were added. The airport's Building 51 from 1935 is a National Historic Landmark.

Newark is one of three major airports serving the New York metropolitan area; the others are John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, which are also operated by the Port Authority. The airport handles almost as many flights as JFK, despite being 40 percent of JFK's land size.

More information: Newark Liberty International Airport

 There are those airports which make you feel better,
and there are those airports that, when you go there,
your heart sinks: you can't wait to get out of there.
They both function as airports,
but it's the things that you can't measure
that make them different.

Norman Foster