Mayor de Blasio, responding to comments Vice President Joe Biden made a day earlier comparing LaGuardia Airport to a third world country, called his words “inappropriate.”
It was not his “finest moment,” the mayor said, answering reporters’ questions at a press conference Friday.
“LaGuardia obviously needs an upgrade, but that being said, the airport manages an extraordinary amount of traffic and the people who work there make it work under very difficult circumstances,” he said.
Vice President Joe Biden made the remarks while reportedly speaking about infrastructure in Philadelphia Thursday at an event to unveil Amtrak’s newest engine.
“If you blindfolded someone and took them at two o’clock in the morning into the airport in Hong Kong and said where do you think you are, they’d say, ‘this must be in America, this is a modern airport,'” Biden said. “If I took you in 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!”
Governor Andrew Cuomo, in his State of the State address this January, said the borough’s airports were in need of care, particularly LaGuardia, which he said was ranked as the worst airport in the country.
Cuomo proposed modernizing LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports by having the state assume management responsibility from The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
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