Historic LaGuardia Airport terminal deserted after Spirit Airlines shutdown – Gothamist

The abrupt shutdown of Spirit Airlines over the weekend has turned an entire terminal at LaGuardia Airport into a ghost town.

Just last Friday, the airport’s tiny but mighty Marine Air Terminal was abuzz with Spirit Airlines passengers. The low-cost airline held the lease at all six of the gates at the landmarked terminal, which dates back to 1940 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

But on Tuesday, the terminal’s entrance were covered in “no entry” signs and hastily printed posters directing Spirit ticketholders to call other airlines.

When Spirit Airlines unexpectedly announced early Saturday that it would begin an “orderly wind-down” by cancelling all its flights and customer service, it also meant that the Marine Air Terminal would essentially shut down, too.

The terminal, also known as Terminal A, technically remains open to the public, but its concession stands and customer service desks were closed on Tuesday.

The Transportation Security Administration checkpoints were closed off, as there were no ticketed passengers to use them. The only portion of the terminal being used was a lounge for Modern Aviation, a private and charter plane service.

“It’s terrible. Yesterday, there was a lot of employees over there. They just came to give a hug to each other, some of them are crying,” said Hande Ariman, 34, who works the front desk at Modern Aviation. “It’s also very emotional for them and for us, because I know some of them, they came here, gave me a hug to say goodbye.”

A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, said the agency does not yet have a plan for another airline to begin using the terminal.

“Our focus is maintaining operational continuity at the airport while supporting passengers during this transition,” spokesperson Halimah Elmariah wrote in an email. “We have deployed additional staff on site at Terminal A to provide information, and we are coordinating closely with our airline partners to manage operations and minimize disruption.”

When the Marine Air Terminal opened in 1940, it was designed for passengers on Pan American Airways “clipper” planes, which landed and took off on the Bowery Bay.

Back then, a flight to Europe took 26 hours with stops either in Bermuda or Nova Scotia, according to the Pan Am Museum’s chair, Linda Freire, who worked for the airline until it was acquired by Delta Airlines in 1991.

“The bloodstream of international aviation will flow through the marine terminal at LaGuardia Airport,” the New York Times wrote the day the building opened to the public.

The opening came during World War II, which prompted the terminal to impose security checks on travelers, a novelty at the time.

“The outgoing traveler first will have his baggage searched for cameras, weapons or contraband at a counter on the right, enlarged fivefold to meet the exigencies of wartime,” the Times wrote.

Then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who attended the opening, called the terminal’s construction “a matter of national importance.”

The building includes a 237-foot-wide mural created by the painter James Brooks that was financed by Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. The mural was painted over in the 1950s, but restored in the 1980s. It’s been preserved since, along with the building’s Art Deco design. The terminal’s rotunda is now filled with memorabilia honoring the history of American aviation.

Delta Airlines took over the shuttle flights running out of the terminal when the company acquired Pan Am in 1991. Delta continued to use the gates until 2017, when its operations moved to other terminals as the company helped finance the massive reconstruction of LaGuardia Airport.

The terminal’s petite size meant its security lines were far shorter than those at the rest of LaGuardia Airport.

Spirit Airlines began operating out of the Marine Air Terminal in 2022.

The company went under after failed efforts at restructuring, and noted that rising energy costs tied to the Iran war contributed to its downfall.

“Unfortunately, despite the Company’s efforts, the recent material increase in oil prices and other pressures on the business have significantly impacted Spirit’s financial outlook,” the company wrote in a statement.

President Donald Trump made a last-ditch effort to buy the airline, but did not secure a deal to save the company before it went kaput.

One of Spirit’s yellow-wrapped planes was visible on the tarmac from the terminal’s entrance on Tuesday.

The fiasco comes as the Port Authority plans a billion-dollar renovation to the parts of the terminal’s concourse that were constructed in the 1980s.

“We plan to move forward with preserving the landmarked Marine Air Terminal while dramatically upgrading the attached non-landmarked 1980s-era concourse and boarding area,” wrote Elmariah, the Port Authority spokesperson.

Bob  Singleton, the executive director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, said the terminal was a symbol of modernity.

“ This was the spirit of the 20th century really coming into fruition,” he said. “ This was a statement that this was a new world, a new time, a new epic. Things that used to be in people’s dreams were now available.”

Singleton takes solace that the Port Authority will preserve the James Brooks WPA mural and rotunda at the Marine Air Terminal entrance.

“ This terminal is so important, not only for what it did for the past, but what it could possibly do for the future,” he said.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Pan American Airways’ name.