JFK vs LaGuardia: Which New York Airport Should You Use?

Pick LaGuardia for a domestic trip into Manhattan: it is about 8 miles (13 km) from Midtown instead of 15 miles (24 km), the bus-and-subway ride costs $3.00 instead of $11.75, and travelers rated it higher in 2026.

Pick JFK for anything international, for a weekday nonstop to the West Coast, or when you need the better on-time record. JFK ran 72.7% of its domestic arrivals on time from January to July 2026, against LaGuardia’s 67.6%, and it has a train link that traffic cannot touch.

Below, the two are compared on getting to Manhattan, where you can fly, delays, fares and the terminals, as of October 2026. The numbers come from the Port Authority, the MTA, the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and our own airport database.

Getting to Manhattan

This is the question most people are really asking, and distance does most of the work. NYC Tourism puts LaGuardia about 8 miles from Midtown and JFK about 15, with a taxi taking 20 to 45 minutes from LaGuardia and 40 to 60 minutes from JFK, or well over an hour at busy times.

By public transit, LaGuardia is the cheapest airport ride in New York. The Q70 LaGuardia Link bus has been free since May 2022 and runs from Terminals B and C to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Av in about 15 minutes, where the E, F, M, R and 7 trains continue into Manhattan for a $3.00 subway fare.

The catch is that the bus shares the road with everyone else, and the MTA warns the full trip can take an hour or more. LaGuardia’s own rail link, the AirTrain LGA, was cancelled in 2023 after its estimated cost rose from $450 million to $2.4 billion, and the state turned to upgrading the Q70 bus instead.

JFK costs more by transit but runs on rails. The AirTrain costs $8.75 and connects to the subway and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) at Jamaica, so the subway route to Penn Station is $11.75 and about 50 minutes, and the LIRR route is $14 off-peak or $16 at peak and about 30 minutes, according to the Port Authority.

By taxi the order flips back. A yellow cab from JFK to anywhere in Manhattan is a flat $70, which comes to $76.75 with the fees for a Midtown drop-off, before tip and tolls, and $81.75 between 4 and 8 p.m. on weekdays.

LaGuardia is metered, and the airport estimates $30 to $52 to Times Square, plus a $5 LaGuardia surcharge and the same smaller fees.

Every taxi and ride-hail trip that ends at or below 60th Street also pays the congestion toll that started in January 2025: 75 cents in a taxi and $1.50 in an Uber or Lyft. It is still being charged in October 2026, while the federal government appeals a March 2026 ruling against its attempt to end it.

For Brooklyn the map changes. JFK’s AirTrain meets the A train at Howard Beach, which runs through Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, and the LIRR from Jamaica serves Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn as well as Penn Station and Grand Central Madison.

Edge: LaGuardia. It is closer and cheaper by bus or taxi, although JFK’s rail link is the safer bet into Midtown at rush hour.

Where you can fly

JFK is the city’s international gateway. Our JFK airport page counts about 662 flights a day to 226 destinations in 78 countries, 124 of them international, and the longest nonstop runs to Singapore at about 18 hours 20 minutes.

LaGuardia is a domestic airport by design. Our LaGuardia airport page counts about 552 flights a day to 99 destinations, only 7 of them abroad. In 2025, 1.60 million of its 1.64 million international passengers flew to or from Canada, according to the Port Authority.

Two rules keep it that way. LaGuardia has no customs hall, so its only international flights come from airports where US Customs and Border Protection clears passengers before departure, such as Toronto, Montreal and Nassau. And since 1984 the Port Authority’s perimeter rule has kept most LaGuardia nonstops within 1,500 miles (2,400 km), with Denver grandfathered and Saturdays exempt.

That is why you cannot fly nonstop from LaGuardia to Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco on a normal weekday. The history of the rule, and of why New York needs three airports at all, is in our explainer on why New York has so many airports.

The runways tell the same story. JFK’s longest runway is more than 14,500 feet, the kind of length long-haul widebodies need, while both of LaGuardia’s are about 7,000 feet, which suits the narrowbody and regional jets that fly its short routes.

Edge: JFK. It flies to more than twice as many places, and it is New York’s airport for Europe, Asia and weekday West Coast nonstops.

Delays and cancellations

Both airports run tight on capacity. The FAA caps JFK at 81 scheduled operations an hour and LaGuardia at 71, and in June 2026 it extended both orders to October 2028. “Without the operational limitations imposed by the Order, FAA expects severe congestion-related delays would occur at JFK,” the order says.

Inside those caps, JFK has been the more reliable airport lately. On domestic flights by US airlines, 75.5% of JFK arrivals were on time in 2025 against 71.3% at LaGuardia, and from January to July 2026 the figures were 72.7% and 67.6%, both below the US average of 75.0%.

It was not always so. In 2024 LaGuardia beat JFK, with 78.4% of arrivals on time to JFK’s 77.0%, so its slide of about 7 points in 2025 is recent rather than built in.

Cancellations follow the same pattern. From January to July 2026, LaGuardia cancelled 6.1% of its domestic departures and JFK 4.6%. From January to August 2025, the rates had been 3.1% and 1.9%.

Part of LaGuardia’s 2026 figure is one night. On March 22, an Air Canada Express CRJ900 collided with an airport fire truck on Runway 4 while landing, killing both pilots.

The Port Authority later cited “operational limitations following the runway incident” for LaGuardia’s lower first-quarter traffic. The NTSB investigation into the collision is still open and has not assigned a cause.

The bigger shared problem is in the sky. Reuters reported in July 2026 that the New York TRACON, the radar facility that handles arrivals for both airports, had 57% of its target number of certified controllers, and the FAA has let airlines fly about 10% fewer flights at JFK and LaGuardia without losing their slots.

Once you board, LaGuardia gets you airborne faster. Its domestic flights averaged 25.9 minutes from gate to takeoff in 2025, against 28.8 minutes at JFK and a US average of 18.6.

Edge: JFK. It had the better on-time record in both 2025 and 2026, even if LaGuardia’s taxi-outs are about three minutes shorter.

Airfares

LaGuardia looks cheaper on paper. In the second quarter of 2026, BTS put the average domestic itinerary fare from LaGuardia at $404.23, against $497.23 from JFK and a national average of $445.26.

That $93 gap is not a like-for-like price. JFK’s average includes transcontinental trips, which the perimeter rule keeps out of LaGuardia’s, so the honest test is to price your own route from both airports on the same day.

The low-fare mix changed this year too. Spirit Airlines, LaGuardia’s fifth-largest carrier in 2025, stopped flying in May 2026, and JetBlue is taking over Spirit’s 22 LaGuardia slots. Delta is the largest airline at both airports, with 42.7% of LaGuardia’s passengers and 29.6% of JFK’s in 2025.

Edge: LaGuardia. Its average fare is lower, but check your exact route, because the average mostly reflects shorter trips.

Terminals and the airport itself

LaGuardia is the newer airport today. Its roughly $8 billion rebuild opened the Terminal B headhouse in 2020 and Delta’s Terminal C in 2022, with 73 new gates, and the two terminals carried 31 million of its 32.8 million passengers in 2025.

Travelers notice. In J.D. Power’s 2026 North America Airport Satisfaction Study, LaGuardia ranked 4th of the mega airports with 638 points in its first year in that group, while JFK ranked 8th with 626. Skytrax’s 2026 World Top 100 put LaGuardia 38th and JFK 85th.

JFK is in the middle of its own rebuild, so expect construction. The $9.5 billion New Terminal One is now due to open its first gates in early 2027, and the $4.2 billion new Terminal 6 opens in phases through 2028, while the airport warns of roadway detours and tells travelers to use transit where they can.

Size cuts both ways. JFK covers 4,930 acres with 125 gates in five terminals, which brings far more international airlines, while LaGuardia fits 79 gates on 680 acres and is quicker to cross.

Edge: LaGuardia. Its rebuild is finished and it outscored JFK in both 2026 traveler rankings.

Who should pick which

For most domestic travelers bound for Manhattan, LaGuardia is the easier airport. JFK earns its place the moment a trip goes abroad, goes long, or needs a train to beat the traffic.