Summary LGA and JFK lack efficient public transportation options for Manhattan's main areas due to no dedicated subway station. Newark Airport in New Jersey offers better public transit to NYC than LGA and JFK. High-speed ferries could provide swift, convenient transportation linking Manhattan and the two major airports.
Few airports are as important in the United States as LaGuardia Airport (LGA) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), the only two facilities officially located within New York City. These airports handle millions of annual passengers, each serving a uniquely important purpose, with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reporting a record 65 million passengers across the two facilities in 2023.
LaGuardia is only connected to New York via a few bus routes, and it does not offer convenient access to Manhattan’s major business districts and residential areas. JFK also lacks an easy transportation option, and like LGA, does not offer a dedicated station on the New York Subway, again requiring most to undertake multiple transfers between forms of mass transit to get to their final destination. Bizarrely enough, the best-connected airport in the region by public transportation is Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in New Jersey, which maintains multiple regional rail services per hour to New York’s Penn Station.
The facility also offers its own dedicated Amtrak connectivity, with access to the Northeast’s only high-speed rail services. Get all the latest aviation news on Simple Flying! Despite the challenges faced by LGA and JFK from a public transportation perspective, there is one solution that could offer swift and convenient access from across the New York metropolitan area. High-speed ferries serve as a crucial transportation link within the region, and they could be the quick and easy transport solution that most of Manhattan has been looking for when it comes to these two massive airports.
The two airports’ purpose It is important to identify the role served by each of the airports in question and their primary passenger demographic, as this can play a key role in understanding why high-speed ferries could prove a critical solution. JFK is New York’s largest international airport and remains the primary point of call for the vast majority of long-haul international carriers. While United Airlines has historically maintained a massive hub across the Hudson River in Newark, the other two US legacy carriers both support extensive JFK-based networks.
As a result, passengers traveling to JFK are often bound for long-haul international journeys, with a strong mix of leisure and business travelers. Due to the nature of long-haul travel, vacation-bound passengers are often carrying multiple suitcases with them or traveling in a larger group, making options like the subway or bus significantly less convenient than driving or calling a rideshare. Business travelers almost always travel via company-sponsored Uber, making public transportation seldom an option of interest.
As a result, it is unsurprising that there has been little initiative to drastically improve public transportation options for JFK. LaGuardia serves as a smaller, more domestic-oriented airport, with travelers typically embarking on shorter journeys, or arriving in New York for a shorter time. The airport’s proximity to the city’s major business districts in Midtown, Hudson Yards, and Wall Street make it a favorite among business travelers, who, as previously mentioned, are not all that concerned with the matter of public transportation to the airport.
A closer look at the lesser-known airports serving the New York area, including Trenton-Mercer, Westchester County, and Long Island MacArthur. As a result, it is not difficult to understand why these two airports have failed to attract efficient links to mass transit. Furthermore, with funding for public transportation in the city continuing to be limited, any initiative to do so will likely be deprioritized in favor of more urgent needs.
The high-speed ferry value proposition The New York Area, which consists of multiple islands, bays, and rivers, is, unsurprisingly, an ideal region for water transportation, something that has resulted in the long-standing success of many ferry operators. There are entire commuter communities, primarily in the state of New Jersey, which depend heavily on these boats to offer reliable high-speed transportation for those who work in the city. Thus, high-speed water transportation between distances of around 15-20 nautical miles (roughly the range for journeys from major Manhattan ferry terminals to LGA and JFK) is certainly not out of the question.
This kind of ferry business model undoubtedly has some noteworthy success stories. Seastreak LLC, for example, is an Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey-based ferry operator, with a fleet of 10 vessels, and operates service to a handful of destinations across the region. The company operates the Courageous and Commodore , broadly cited as the two largest high-speed ferries in the United States.
These vessels are remarkably reliable, and Seastreak has been able to maintain an impressive on-time performance. These ferries make what would usually be a 90-120 minute drive which could even be extended by additional traffic into a simple 45-60 minute crossing, one that the average commuter can hardly ever remember being late. With the ability to operate over comparable distances at high speeds and not suffering from punctuality issues, there is certainly a case to be made that the ferry operator’s model could be used to service high-demand routes from destinations like Pier 11/Wall Street, Hudson Yards and East 34th Street to LaGuardia and JFK.
From this high-level framing, one can begin to see what high-speed water transportation networks to the two major airports could look like. Potential hurdles to clear Some challenges do exist with this concept, many of which relate to fundamental differences between the high-speed ferry and airport transfer business models. Operationally, the two may seem similar, but there are some noteworthy differences.
For starters, an operator like Seastreak, along with many others in the New York harbor region, primarily relies on commuter traffic, which is unsurprisingly predictable. While worker tendencies have shifted slightly in the wake of the pandemic and the work-from-home revolution, ferry operators are still able to benefit by centering their services around core weekday work hours. These ferries primarily operate during the peak hours of the work week, with many services between 6:30 and 9:00 AM, as well as between 4:00 and 6:00 PM, something which can be easily identified from the company's schedule .
In between, however, relatively few services are scheduled. With such a focus on commuter demand, it is unsurprising that companies like Seastreak have invested so heavily in building larger high-speed ferries, as the increased capacity decreases individual costs on average. Getting to and from the facility has never been easier.
When attempting to transit passengers to an airport, however, a ferry operator would need to run consistent round-the-clock services, as traffic to JFK or LaGuardia is much more evenly spread throughout the day. As a result, potential operators would likely need to invest in lower-capacity, highly efficient fleets. In the past, many have even attempted to bypass the area’s airport-related transport issues completely, again by using New York’s valuable waterways.
Tailwind Air, a long-time operator of seaplane services between Manhattan and Boston, ceased operations earlier this year. The company has connected New York’s primary seaplane base in the East River VFR corridor with a seaplane base in Boston Harbor, operating such flights since 2014..
