New York LaGuardia airport – rehabilitate or close down? Is privatisation a more useful option?

At the beginning of May-2015 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) delayed, again, deciding between two proposals for the close to USD4 billion project to rehabilitate the dilapidated Central Terminal Building at LaGuardia Airport (LGA). Contempt for the state of disrepair, the crowds and the general squalidness at LaGuardia had become so pervasive that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has likened travelling through LaGuardia to an experience "in a third world country."

LaGuardia is representative of the US' declining aviation infrastructure and is certainly not alone. Many of the US' government and business executives have expressed concern about the state of US airports in general and how, like with the airlines (as they have consolidated and pared costs), they no longer compare in any way to the air transport offer from countries in Asia and the Middle East. But neither is Mr Biden alone.

LGA has been ranked in numerous customer surveys as the worst in the United States. A recent New York Times op-ed article challenged thinking (although without a mention of possible privatisation).