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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Your Wine Flies Free On Alaska Airlines

CNBC writes about a little know offer that Alaska Airlines offers to wine lovers. If you fly on Alaska Airlines out of airports in California, Washington State or any airport in Oregon, they will allow you to check one case of wine free.

The author, Harriet Baskas, writes that the Washington & Oregon wine growers approached Alaska Airlines to help solve a problem. Supposedly, people had no problem in dropping $300 on a case a wine, but wouldn't because of the $25 or $50 airline checked baggage fee:

"Shipping a case of wine as freight can cost up to $60 via UPS and checking it as baggage on an airplane can cost $25 or more, depending on the weight of the wine and the number of other bags being checked.

"Ironically, we'd see people willing to spend $300 to $500 on a case of wine, yet that extra $25 to put it on the plane was a negative," said Duane Wollmuth, executive director of Washington's Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance. "It did stop people from buying the wine at the wineries."

You can learn more about the program here and here.

The program has been a great success. Wollmuth argues the promotion brings  "the program represents at least a quarter to a half-million dollars of additional wine sales a month in the peak season," 

As a reciprocal benefit, Alaska Airlines asked "wineries in participating regions to waive the tasting fees for it s passengers who show their boarding passes." However, I could not find of participating wineries. 

I think this is a great partnership! Hopefully they renew it for next year.

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 Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for me? E-mail me at jd@doitforthepoints.com