OK, the question is, why are there no Intercontinental flights out of LGA? Shirley there’s enough flights from all over the US and NYC to support the demand of a Europe flight isnt there? 
Ok, the answer is, the 1500 mile perimeter rule.
mduell is exactly right about the perimeter rule, and to answer your question about NYC demand, JFK is more than capable of handling the international demand, and it is a short drive from LGA.
Whats the 1500 mile perimeter rule?
You can’t offer airline service to airports more than 1500 miles away. There are two exceptions: You can fly to Denver and you can fly anywhere on Saturday.
Hmmmm! Sounds like LGA has its own version of the DFW Wright Amendment. Just a bit more liberal in distance, but still anti-competitive.
It’s unlike the Wright ammendment in that they’re not trying to favor one airline over another and you can make connecting travel from LGA outside of the perimeter. They’re just trying to keep traffic down at LGA.
Another problem with intercontinental flights to LGA would be INS/FIS facilities; they exist, but they’re rather small.
It’s unlike the Wright ammendment in that they’re not trying to favor one airline over another and you can make connecting travel from LGA outside of the perimeter. They’re just trying to keep traffic down at LGA.
I’ll disagree, Mark. In theory, the Wright amendment was never intended to favor one airline over another, and several airlines have at some time operated from KDAL. The purpose was to favor one AIRPORT by minimizing operations at the other. Not similar to “trying to keep traffic down at LGA”? I think it is. It’s a geographical restriction one way or another.
The main difference is that connections to travel beyond the perimeter is allowable at KLGA, but not at KDAL. That’s really a small issue. Both airports are limited in capacity by a geographical parameter.
Well, LGA has that 1500 mile rule, and I believe they still have landing slots as well. YOu can complain all you want about those slots not being fair to open marketplaces and all that, but the FAA tried going without slots for a few weeks, and all hell broke loose.
See, a few years back, it could easlily be 10 years ago now that I think about it, the FAA lifted the slot restrictions to see what would happen, since everyone said they weren’t fair and LGA didn’t need them. Well, day one of no-slots, and Comair added 250 flights a day to LGA. AAL added a bunch more, and so did everyone else. They added so many flights, there simply wasn’t enough runway usage time to get them all off the ground. So, alot of them were cancelled and it was a big fiasco. It was apparent that the airlines couldn’t demonstrate self control when it came to their schedule. Its like, for some reason, “this airport can only land 35 planes an hour” was an inviation to the airlines to each schedule 45 planes an hour. And then they’d point the finger and say ATC DELAYS, not our fault. Its a shame really.
I bring this up to point out that the airlines can bitch all they want, but its thier own damn fault. If they worked together and made schedules better and more spread out, or even just substituded larger equipment for a few less flights a day, then maybe the FAA wouldn’t have to limit them. They’ve proven they can’t play nice, so now they have to sit in thier room for a while.
DM
They’ve [the airlines] proven they can’t play nice, so now they have to sit in thier room for a while.
What some people call “playing nice”, other people call “collusion”. There’s not really much difference between deciding how to divide up the airport’s schedule capacity (which, btw, discriminates against new carrier entries to a market) and deciding how high to set fares so no one will be tempted to undercut the price structure. The FAA didn’t like that either.
“Don’t call me (us) Shirley!”