Is LaGuardia Worse Than Third World County Airport?

At a news conference earlier this week, Vice President Joe Biden compared New York City's LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to the "third world."

Photo Credit: John Roleke

His actually quote was alot better:

“If I blindfolded someone and took him at 2 o’clock in the morning into the airport in Hong Kong and said, Where do you think you are?’ he’d say, ‘This must be America, it’s a modern airport,’” Biden said. “If I took him blindfolded and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you must think, ‘I must be in some Third World country.’ I’m not joking!”

I have been to LGA only once. My thoughts of the airport were similar to the Vice Presidents, the place is a dump. However, I have been to third world countries' airport and LGA is better. During my trip to Niger, I had to fly through Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, all "third world countries." All three of the airports were in worse shape than LGA. 

For instance, the Burkina Faso airport only had two toilets for my terminal. Then in Niger, the waiting area had chairs straight out of the 1970s. The icing on the cake was in Mali where I arrived to a dark airport. The airport didn't have power! When I asked staff about the darkness, their response was that it "happened every night." Now that's third world.

CNBC asked its readers if they agreed with Biden in a non-scientific poll. The results weren't shocking:

I voted "Yes," even if I disagree with his analogy.

Port Authority its your move....

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