LGA/037 is right about the LaGuardia Delta blast fence area for Comair, which was formally used by the US Airways Shuttle to park the standby aircraft, the Auto Shop, and the commuter parking spots.
Meanwhile, there have been multiple options discussed to raise US Airways’ liquidity and one option is to sell the LGA terminal. There are two parts to this option.
The first part is that New York City has an ordinance that it will provide New York based companies tax breaks and other incentives if they base their operations in the City. JetBlue is based in Queen’s and qualifies for incentives at Kennedy and LaGuardia and is the only large passenger airline the City will likely support. More on this later.
The City government controls five boroughs with 12 community Boards. The Board that controls LaGuardia is the Austoria Board and I recently talked with an Austoria Board member in New York at length about the potential for US Airways to sell its LaGuardia terminal.
When US Airways announced last year that it was soliciting bids for different assets Delta, JetBlue, and American all made overtures to take custody of US Airways’ terminal. Delta’s intent was to swap buildings with US Airways so that the Atlanta-based airline and their partner Northwest could move into US Airways’ terminal. In addition, Continental would have moved from the Central Terminal and the Delta Shuttle could move from the MAT. This would permit all of the alliance partners to operate out of one building, versus three
If US Airways moved to the Delta terminal it would have sold off the Shuttle slots to another operator who could then take over the MAT. US Airways elected to not to pursue this option, but a few months ago the sale of the US Airways terminal again was placed on the Austoria Board agenda and discussed at a public meeting.
I was told the new proposal has been generated by the Port Authority of NY & NJ and JetBlue. JetBlue wants to use its preferential rights as a New York-based company to obtain a LaGuardia terminal and the new proposal is:
-- Two of the three AMR hangars on the east side of the airport would be torn down and a new terminal built for JetBlue that would have 26 gates. The third hangar would remain in place and be used by the Port Authority.
-- America Airlines would then move to the US Airways terminal and take control of the two adjacent hangars that were formally used by TWA.
-- US Airways would then move to the Central Terminal building and would take control of the AMR and AMR Eagle gates, the Admiral’s Club, all of which are located next to United gates. US Airways would be paid $300 million for the move, it would lower its debt obligation, and it would have space similar in scope to its current operation.
The Board member I talked with said no decision has been made and it was unclear if this would proceed.
In my opinion, US Airways’ LaGuardia terminal sale/move may have been overcome by events with the Air Wisconsin DIP/equity investment, the March operating/net profit, the potential sale of MDA and East Coast commuter slots, and multiple investors apparently willing to invest in the company if the America West deal proceeds.
Regards,
USA320Pilot