What Terminal Is Southwest at LaGuardia (LGA)? Terminal B, Gates 53-57

I will defend LaGuardia to anyone who sits still long enough. Not the old LGA — the one that earned every insult it got through the 2010s. The new one. The Port Authority and LaGuardia Gateway Partners spent years and billions turning Terminal B into something that actually works, and LGA moved nearly 33 million passengers in 2025 without the chaos it used to be famous for.

So it bothers me that when you search where Southwest flies from at LGA, half the internet still hands you the wrong gate. I spent eight years advising carriers on hub operations before I started writing about them, and gate assignments are the kind of detail I used to stare at all day. Let me give you the honest version.

Southwest Flies From LGA Terminal B, Gates 53-57

Southwest operates out of Terminal B at LaGuardia. According to Southwest’s own airport-information page, its LGA gates are 53-57, in the terminal’s Eastern Concourse.

That is the whole answer. If you are dropping someone off, printing a boarding pass, or just deciding which building to walk into, it is Terminal B. Everything below is the useful detail around that.

The Gate Number Most Sites Get Wrong

Here is where I get to do my favorite thing, which is complain about aggregator sites.

Search “what terminal is Southwest at LGA” and you will trip over pages — Blade, CoreCar, AirlineAirport, a Slideshare PDF — that confidently tell you Southwest sits at “Pier A, Gates 31A-35.” That is wrong. There is no Pier A at LaGuardia, and 31A-35 are not Southwest’s LGA gates.

Where did that number come from? It is Southwest’s gate assignment at Boston Logan (BOS). Someone published it, everyone else copied it, and nobody checked it against Southwest’s own page. This is exactly why I don’t trust booking sites for operational detail: they scrape each other, and one mistake becomes ten identical mistakes. Go to the airline’s airport page. It says 53-57.

Terminal B’s Two Concourses: Where Southwest Sits

Terminal B is big — 1.3 million square feet — and it splits into two concourses off a central hall.

• The Western Concourse holds gates 11-31. That is American’s side; American Airlines also flies from Terminal B at LGA and runs most of its operation over there.
• The Eastern Concourse holds gates 40-59, and that is where Southwest lives, alongside Air Canada, Frontier, JetBlue, Porter, and United.

Southwest’s 53-57 sit deep in the Eastern Concourse — toward the far end, not near the entrance. Worth knowing when you come through the door and have to decide which way to turn.

Check-In, Security, and How Early to Arrive

Southwest suggests arriving 120 minutes before a domestic departure at LGA, and its ticket counter opens 120 minutes before the first flight of the day. For a busy, slot-controlled airport, that two-hour figure is honest, not padding — take it seriously on weekday mornings.

Southwest lists these amenities at its LGA station: charging stations, skycap, airport-provided WiFi, a TSA PreCheck Touchless ID checkpoint, a Priority Lane, and self-tagging for bags. Note what is missing — there is no Express Lane here, which some other Southwest stations have. Budget your time on the standard lane accordingly.

Walk Time From Security to Southwest’s Gates

Once you are through security, LGA’s own walk-time chart puts gates 40-59 — Southwest’s concourse — at 6-9 minutes from the checkpoint. The Western Concourse’s gates 11-31 are closer, at 4-6 minutes.

It is not a marathon. But add those minutes onto the two-hour arrival window above, especially if anyone in your party moves slowly. Nine minutes with a roller bag and a coffee is longer than it sounds.

Connecting to Another Terminal at LGA

Here is another myth to kill: that changing terminals at LGA means a mandatory shuttle bus.

LaGuardia’s three terminals — A, B, and C — are linked by a free All Terminals Shuttle bus. But per LGA’s connections guide, there is also a direct pedestrian path between Terminal B and Terminal C. So if you land on Southwest in B and your next flight is on Delta — and connecting to Delta means heading to Terminal C — you can walk it instead of waiting for a bus. You will still exit and clear security again for the Delta flight, because there is no shared airside between the buildings, but the pedestrian path is the faster move.

What Happened to Terminal A?

If your old notes mention Spirit at LaGuardia’s Terminal A, throw them out. Spirit filed Chapter 7 and shut down all operations at 3:00 a.m. Eastern on May 2, 2026, and it was Terminal A’s last scheduled airline. Terminal A — the historic Marine Air Terminal — now handles only Modern Aviation’s general-aviation and private-flight operations.

The practical upshot for a Southwest flyer: you will never need Terminal A. Your entire trip is Terminal B.

Inside the New Terminal B

A word on why Terminal B feels different from the LaGuardia of memory. It is the product of a roughly $4 billion rebuild — part of an $8 billion airport-wide overhaul — delivered in phases and substantially finished in early 2022. Skytrax named it the World’s Best New Airport Terminal in 2023 and has given it back-to-back 5-star ratings in 2023 and 2025. That is not brochure fluff; it is a genuinely good building. I told you I defend this place.

Getting to Terminal B

The one thing LaGuardia still does not have is a train. There is no direct rail link, so ground transport is MTA bus, taxi, rideshare, or driving. The M60, the Q70 LaGuardia Link, and the Q72 all serve the terminals (the Q70 and Q72 skip Terminal A, which no longer matters for scheduled flights), and LGA runs its own free internal shuttle between buildings. For the full rundown of costs and times, see our guide to getting from LaGuardia to Manhattan. If you are driving, LaGuardia’s parking options sit right next to Terminal B.

Southwest at LGA: Quick FAQ

Is Southwest always in Terminal B at LGA? Yes. Southwest’s entire LaGuardia operation is in Terminal B, Eastern Concourse. The exact gate within 53-57 can shift flight to flight — always check your boarding pass and the departure board — but the terminal does not change.

Which airlines share Terminal B with Southwest? Six others: Air Canada, American, Frontier, JetBlue, Porter, and United. American dominates the Western Concourse; the rest, Southwest included, are on the Eastern side.

Where does Southwest fly nonstop from LGA? Domestic destinations only. LaGuardia has no Customs and Border Protection facility, so Southwest’s LGA flying is entirely domestic. LGA also enforces the FAA “perimeter rule,” which generally caps nonstops at about 1,500 miles — so expect short- and medium-haul routes rather than transcontinental hops.

Do I have to re-clear security to connect to Delta in Terminal C? Yes. There is no airside connection between Terminal B and Terminal C, so any terminal change means exiting and going through TSA again. The good news is you can take the pedestrian path between B and C instead of waiting for the shuttle.