Newark vs LaGuardia: Which New York Airport Should You Fly Into?

Pick LaGuardia for a domestic trip into Manhattan or Queens. It sits about 8 miles (13 km) from Midtown instead of 16 miles (26 km), the free bus and subway ride costs $3.00 instead of $17.25 by train from Newark, and travelers rated it far higher in 2026.

Pick Newark for anything international, a nonstop to the West Coast on any day of the week, a United flight, a stay in New Jersey, or a better shot at leaving on time. Newark ran 75.4% of its domestic arrivals on time from January to August 2026, against 67.2% at LaGuardia.

Below, the two are compared on getting to Manhattan, airfares, size and destinations, delays and the terminals, as of November 2026. The numbers come from the Port Authority, NJ Transit, the MTA, the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, the FAA, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and our own airport database.

Getting to Manhattan

LaGuardia is half the distance. NYC Tourism puts it about 8 miles (13 km) from Midtown, across the East River in Queens, while Newark sits about 16 miles (26 km) away in New Jersey.

That shows up in the cab. A taxi from LaGuardia to Midtown takes 20 to 45 minutes, and from Newark 45 to 60 minutes, depending on traffic, according to NYC Tourism.

LaGuardia’s taxi is metered. The airport estimates $30 to $52 to Times Square before tips, tolls and congestion pricing, and the Taxi and Limousine Commission adds a $5.00 LaGuardia surcharge plus a $2.00 pickup fee.

From Newark, NYC Tourism estimates $60 to $80 on the meter, plus a $1.75 pickup fee, bridge and tunnel tolls in both directions and the tip. A New York yellow cab going the other way, to Newark, charges the meter plus a $20 Newark surcharge and the driver’s return tolls.

Newark wins on rail, because LaGuardia has none. From any terminal, AirTrain Newark runs to the airport’s train station, where NJ Transit reaches New York Penn Station in about 30 minutes for $17.25, a fare that includes the $8.75 AirTrain fee.

The AirTrain ride to that station takes 7 minutes from Terminal C, 11 from Terminal B and 20 from Terminal A, which the AirTrain does not reach directly. NYC Tourism calls the whole trip about 60 minutes to Midtown.

LaGuardia’s transit is a bus, but a free one. The Q70 LaGuardia Link has been fare-free since 2022 and runs from Terminals B and C to the subway hub at Jackson Heights, where a $3.00 subway ride reaches Manhattan, or on to Woodside, where an LIRR CityTicket costs $5.25 off-peak and $7.25 at peak.

A train to LaGuardia is not coming. The AirTrain LGA project was canceled in March 2023, and the Port Authority instead funded plans for a better Q70 and a new nonstop shuttle to the Astoria-Ditmars Boulevard subway station.

The fare gap grows with every traveler. Four adults pay $12.00 to reach Midtown from LaGuardia by bus and subway, and $69.00 from Newark by NJ Transit, a difference of $57.00 before anyone has bought a coffee.

Most people still take a car. In the 2025 survey of departing passengers in the Port Authority’s traffic report, 41.4% of LaGuardia’s travelers arrived by Uber or another ride-hail app and only 4.8% by rail or subway, while 5.0% reached Newark by rail.

Edge: LaGuardia. It is closer, cheaper by transit and cheaper by taxi, although Newark’s train is the only rail link of the two and the easy choice from New Jersey.

Airfares

LaGuardia is cheaper on average. In the second quarter of 2026, BTS put the average domestic itinerary fare at $404.23 from LaGuardia and $495.84 from Newark, a gap of $91.61.

Most of that gap is the route map, not a discount. LaGuardia’s flights are capped at 1,500 miles with few exceptions, so its average is built from shorter trips, while Newark’s includes coast-to-coast flights, such as its 13 daily nonstops to Los Angeles, that cost more to fly.

The honest test is to price your own trip from both airports on the same dates. On a short route both serve, such as Chicago, the busiest route at each airport, the airline matters more than the airport.

Edge: LaGuardia. Its average fare is $91.61 lower, and it is far cheaper to reach once you land, although the fare gap mostly reflects shorter routes.

Size, destinations and airlines

Newark is the bigger airport by every measure. It handled 47.0 million passengers in 2025 to LaGuardia’s 32.8 million, and it covers 2,027 acres with 110 gates and three runways, against LaGuardia’s 680 acres, 79 gates and two runways, according to the Port Authority.

For domestic travel the two are nearly level. Newark carried 31.6 million domestic passengers in 2025 and LaGuardia 31.2 million, so Newark’s lead is almost entirely its 15.4 million international travelers, against LaGuardia’s 1.6 million.

The route maps are where they split. Our Newark airport page counts about 587 flights a day to 180 destinations in 57 countries, 90 of them international, with Singapore the longest at about 18 hours 20 minutes.

Our LaGuardia airport page counts about 578 flights a day to 102 destinations, just 5 of them international, in four countries. Canada is its largest international market.

Distance is limited by rule. A Port Authority perimeter rule dating to 1984 bars nonstop flights from LaGuardia to places more than 1,500 statute miles away, except Denver and except on Saturdays, which is why daily flights to Los Angeles and Seattle leave from Newark and JFK instead.

The runways enforce it physically too. LaGuardia’s two runways are each 7,000 feet (2,130 m) long, extended out over the bay on a pile-supported deck, while Newark’s main runways are 10,000 and 11,000 feet (3,050 and 3,350 m), long enough for the wide-bodies that fly nonstop to Singapore.

The airline mix is the other half of the choice. United carried 67.9% of Newark’s passengers in 2025, while LaGuardia is split: Delta carried 42.7%, American 24.7%, Southwest 9.5% and United 8.5%, according to the Port Authority.

One former option is gone at both. Spirit Airlines, Newark’s second-largest carrier and LaGuardia’s fifth-largest in 2025, ceased operations in May 2026, which the Port Authority says has cut domestic traffic at both airports.

Edge: Newark. It flies farther, to more places and to far more countries, and it is the home airport for anyone loyal to United.

Delays and cancellations

Newark’s bad reputation is from 2025. Controller shortages at the radar facility that guides its traffic, plus a runway rebuild, led the FAA to cap the airport, and since September 2025 the limit has been 36 arrivals and 36 departures an hour.

The cap stays through October 30, 2027. When the FAA extended it in June 2026, the Newark area had 28 of its 46 targeted controllers, or 60.8%, part of a nationwide controller shortage.

“Although FAA has improved its staffing pipeline across the national airspace system (NAS), the level of certified professional air traffic controllers (CPCs) will not significantly improve before close of the Summer 2027 scheduling season.”

Federal Aviation Administration, Newark order extension, June 2026

LaGuardia runs under its own limit, 71 scheduled operations an hour, set in 2006 and now extended to October 28, 2028.

The capped airport is now the punctual one. In 2025 the two were level, with 70.6% of Newark’s domestic arrivals on time against 71.3% at LaGuardia, but from January to August 2026 Newark reached 75.4% while LaGuardia fell to 67.2%, below the US average of 74.5%.

Newark led in every one of the eight months. LaGuardia’s worst was March, at 54.0%, the month an Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire truck while landing on March 22, killing both pilots; the NTSB investigation is still open.

Cancellations point the same way. From January to August 2026, LaGuardia canceled 6.1% of its domestic departures and Newark 4.0%, and Newark’s flights averaged 24.4 minutes from gate to takeoff against 25.8 minutes at LaGuardia.

Edge: Newark. It was the more punctual airport in 2026 and canceled fewer flights, although its operating cap shows how thin its controller staffing still is.

Terminals and rankings

LaGuardia is almost entirely new. The Port Authority’s $8 billion transformation opened Terminal B’s new head house in June 2020 and finished its 35 gates by 2022, while Delta’s 38-gate Terminal C opened in 2022 and was completed in 2024.

The third building is Terminal A, an extension of the Marine Air Terminal, where Pan Am’s flying boats left for Europe in 1940. It has six gates and the “Flight” mural, and it is a historic landmark rather than a modern terminal.

Newark has one new terminal and two old ones. Terminal A, with 33 common-use gates, replaced the 1973 original in early 2023 and was named the world’s best new airport terminal by Skytrax in 2024. United’s Terminal C has 52 gates and Terminal B has 25.

Newark’s AirTrain is its weak spot. The monorail dates from 1996, it is being modernized, and the airport warns of temporary disruptions with shuttle buses filling in.

Travelers rank LaGuardia well ahead. J.D. Power’s 2026 North America study put LaGuardia 4th of the mega airports and Newark tied for last, and Skytrax’s 2026 world list ranked LaGuardia 38th and Newark 65th.

Edge: LaGuardia. Its rebuilt terminals now outscore Newark in both big 2026 rankings, even though Newark’s Terminal A is the single best building of the two.

For the third side of the triangle, our JFK vs Newark comparison and JFK vs LaGuardia comparison use the same data, and our guide to why New York has so many airports explains how the three came to be.

Who should pick which