The TSA is recommending that travelers flying out of New
York’s LaGuardia Airport arrive at least 2 to 2-and-a-half hours ahead of their
scheduled departure due to traffic delays caused by airport construction.
“Construction requires the altering of traffic patterns in
and around the airport as well as the closure of several parking lots and
limited parking,” the agency said.
The TSA issued the advisory last week amid reports that LaGuardia
traffic was so bad that some passengers had taken to walking down the Grand
Central Parkway toward the terminal, luggage in hand.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs
LaGuardia, also took to Twitter last week to encourage passengers to give
themselves extra time now that a planned $8 billion remake of the outdated
facility is underway.
The first major work being done by the contracting
consortium LaGuardia Gateway Partners is the construction of a new parking
garage.
In an interview with Travel Weekly in June, LaGuardia
Gateway Partners CEO Stewart Steeves said he expected that passengers would be
able to get to their gates with little disruption during the first three of
four years of the project. However, Steeves did say that the one area in which
LaGuardia customers should expect to encounter hassles during construction is
in driving to the airport.
The airport rebuild is expected to be ongoing for more than
five years.