New York airport codes

New York is served by three major airports, and none of them is in Manhattan:

• JFK — John F. Kennedy International, in Queens
• LGA — LaGuardia, also in Queens
• EWR — Newark Liberty International, across the river in New Jersey

There is also a fourth code that is not an airport at all: NYC, the city code that groups all three. How these codes work in general is covered in airport codes explained; this page is the New York specifics.

The three airports at a glance

Straight-line (geodesic) distance from Midtown Manhattan to each airport's reference point, computed from the same OurAirports coordinates as the rest of this site. Road and rail journeys are longer.

One result surprises people: measured in a straight line, Newark is closer to Midtown than JFK. JFK sits out on Jamaica Bay; Newark is just across the Hudson. Which is quicker on the day depends on traffic and trains, not geography — but “New Jersey” does not mean “further away”.

JFK — the international gateway

JFK is New York’s main long-haul airport and the one most international itineraries use. Delta, JetBlue and American all run major operations there, and almost every foreign airline flying to New York lands at JFK.

The code is a rename. The airport opened as Idlewild, with the code IDL, and was renamed after President Kennedy in December 1963. The new name brought a new code, which is why JFK is one of the few airports whose code is a person’s initials.

Its ICAO code is KJFK. The leading K marks the contiguous United States, which is why so many US ICAO codes are simply the IATA code with a K in front.

See the JFK airport page for coordinates, time zone and the routes covered from it.

LaGuardia — domestic and short-haul

LGA is the closest of the three to Manhattan and handles almost entirely domestic flying. A federal perimeter rule limits most nonstop flights from LaGuardia to around 1,500 miles, so long-haul international service does not operate from it.

The practical consequence for planning: if your itinerary shows a long international flight “from New York”, it is almost certainly JFK or Newark, not LaGuardia. A short domestic connection, on the other hand, may well be at LGA — and that matters, as the next section explains.

Newark — New Jersey, and United’s hub

EWR takes its code from the city of Newark rather than the airport’s full name. It is a major United Airlines hub, so a United itinerary to or through New York usually means Newark, as do many transatlantic and Asian flights on United and its Star Alliance partners.

Because it is in New Jersey, Newark is easy to overlook when searching “New York” — but it is included in the NYC city code, and most booking sites treat it as a New York airport.

The NYC city code

NYC is an IATA metropolitan area code. It does not belong to any one airport; searching for it returns flights at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark together. That makes it the right search when you do not care which airport you use and want to compare all of them.

It is also how a single search can quietly mix airports — arriving at one and leaving from another. That can be perfectly sensible on a round trip, but it changes the plan, and on a connection it is a trap. The difference between a city code and an airport code is covered in airport codes explained.

The smaller airports in the table — Westchester (HPN), Long Island MacArthur (ISP) and Stewart (SWF) — are not in the NYC code, so a city-code search will not show them.

Connecting between New York airports

A connection that lands at one New York airport and departs from another is not a connection in the airline sense. Moving between JFK and Newark means crossing the whole metropolitan area by road or rail — over 30 km in a straight line, considerably more by any real route.

If both flights are on one ticket, the airline has chosen to sell that itinerary and is responsible for it. If they are on separate tickets, nobody is: it is a self-transfer, and a delay on the first flight is your problem alone. Build in far more time than a same-airport connection would need — the minimum connection time published for a single airport does not apply across two.

Which airport should you use?

There is no universal answer, but these rules of thumb hold:

• Long-haul international: JFK or Newark. LaGuardia is generally not an option.
• Flying United or a Star Alliance partner: Newark is the likely hub.
• Flying Delta, JetBlue or American internationally: JFK is the likely base.
• Short domestic hop: LaGuardia is often the most convenient for Manhattan.
• Staying in New Jersey or west Manhattan: Newark is worth checking first.

Whatever you choose, make sure every document in your plan shows the same airport. An itinerary that says “New York” when the flight leaves from Newark is how people end up at the wrong airport.

Staying near a New York airport

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For an early departure or late arrival at JFK, an airport hotel avoids the trip in from Manhattan. The listing is sorted by distance from the JFK terminal.

Hotels near JFK on Trip.comPre-book an airport transfer

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Related reading

• Airport codes explained
• London airport codes
• What is a self-transfer flight?
• JFK airport page · JFK to London Heathrow