LaGuardia Gateway Partners CEO, Suzette Noble, Discusses Connecting Terminal B Guests to an Exceptional Airport Experience
Whether a hotel or resort, a restaurant or lounge, a large public venue, a retail outlet, or even a busy transportation hub such as an airport, the experience that a guest values the most and chooses to revisit time and again is one of hospitality, an excellent first impression, convenience, security, aesthetics, and the quality of services provided. Suzette Noble, a Vantage Airport Group Senior Executive and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of LaGuardia Gateway Partners (LGP), knows this to be true.
LGP is the private entity the Port Authority of New York (PANYNJ) and New Jersey selected to manage and redevelop LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B. In 2021, Suzette Noble joined LGP as Chief Operating Officer (COO), directing the delivery of an outstanding and harmonious guest experience for all its patrons, implementing processes and metrics for the organization and its partners, and maximizing commercial revenue. In just over one year as the COO, Terminal B was awarded 5-stars from Skytrax, a leading airport rating firm, also earning the title of ‘World’s Best New Airport Terminal.’ With that distinction, Terminal B became the first terminal in North America to be awarded the highest rating by Skytrax.
Another distinction at LGP followed in October 2023 when Noble was promoted from COO to CEO, becoming the first woman to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of LaGuardia Gateway Partners. “I’m very excited about it and the new experiences we’ve been able to open up in the last year, achieving 5 Stars. I’m pretty blessed with a good team. They’ve taught me a lot, and we’ve collaborated a lot, and at the end of the day, our team is here to deliver something great,” said Noble in a recent interview with Metropolitan Airport News.
With over 20 years of experience developing and operating transformational guest experiences at companies recognized for customer service excellence and brand loyalty, including Walt Disney World Parks and Resorts and Krispy Kreme, Noble has served as Board Director for multiple hospitality and tourism associations. Bringing this experience to LaGuardia Gateway Partners, she views the thousands of travelers who travel through the new 5-star Terminal B daily as guests rather than just passengers.
After leaving Disney in 2018, Noble commented, “Folks ask me all the time… ‘aviation’? And I really feel there’s a story and a passion in everything that you can build on, and that’s why I enjoy the challenge, to be able to learn something new and do something to help it be great.” Disney was a great place, where Noble said she learned a lot and feels that it shaped her into the leader she is today.
Suzette Noble was born in Trinidad and spent most of her growing years in the U.S. Virgin Islands. At 14, her family moved to Orlando, Florida, when an opportunity arose for her father to start his own business there. When Suzette turned 16, her parents drove her to Walt Disney World and said, ‘You’re getting a part-time job!’
While working at Disney, Suzette Noble attended Valencia College for Business Administration, learning about the principles of business development. The next day at work, she would apply those principles. “It became a really great part of my life,” said Noble. After leaving school, she joined Disney as an operations leader and stayed with Disney for 20 years, leaving the company as an operations executive. During her tenure there, Noble had the opportunity to work on the opening of the Animal Kingdom Lodge, the expansion of the Magic Kingdom, and as a hotelier and GM of Resorts, amongst others.
“The best part in the last ten years of my career with Disney was when I started to focus on experience development, building new experiences…whether in the attractions field, food and beverage, or retail. There were things that we would think of that we would literally have to build from the ground up. It’s not just the facility, but how does the facility connect with the actual experience,” Noble emphasized.
One of the projects that Noble will always consider her baby is the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, where little girls have the opportunity to be made over as a Disney princess. “Every touchpoint was how do you inspire this magical feeling, and there were a million stories that inspired me,” Noble said. One particular story she fondly remembers occurred when they opened up the first store at Disney, another at the Magic Kingdom, and then in Hong Kong and Shanghai. That day, a little girl walked in to get dressed up as a princess. She could not see herself during her makeover, but she saw her mother and father getting tearful as her family watched her. She looked at them as if to say, ‘What’s going on?’ When the makeover was complete, they turned her around, a mirror lit up, and a fairy godmother sprinkled pixie dust on her. Noble recalled, “Then this little girl bursts out crying and says, ‘I never thought I could be this pretty!’…and, oh my gosh, everyone starts crying at that moment…and we said, “You are beautiful! You don’t need the dress to make you feel that way!” Noble added, “Being able to do things like that has been pretty amazing.”
In 2018, Noble left Disney, and she and her husband decided to open their own hospitality consulting company. Once they went live, several companies reached out to them. One was Krispy Kreme, whose CEO Noble had worked with at Disney. The CEO called Noble to say that Krispy Kreme was opening up a flagship experience in Times Square. She said, “Suzette, we need you. Move over here, and we’ll make it happen!” Noble accepted and laid out the plans for the flagship with a brand new design for the New York store, keeping the guest experience in mind.
She built a team and resources from all over the world. With travel restrictions in place all during the pandemic, Noble remained in New York when Krispy Kreme decided not to close. As they kept building throughout the pandemic, Noble said, “It was cool, and a little nerve-wracking at the same time, because you need to keep your employees as safe as possible. But we did it, and that speaks volumes to the resilience and determination of the team. We opened up the flagship, and it was a hit!”
Shortly after the Krispy Kreme flagship opened, Noble returned to Orlando to see her family. Krispy Kreme offered her a full-time position as VP of Operations on the East Coast with new builds in New York. She then worked on plans to elevate units in the other states into the new brand.
About four months later, the Vantage Airport Group contacted Noble. They told her they had an amazing new terminal and had just finished building something great. They wanted an experienced leader who understood guest experience development as part of their team to make the terminal come to life; it was Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport.
“I was flying in and out of New York all the time and thought, Oh, boy, it’s LaGuardia,” recalled Noble, “but I had the ‘old LaGuardia’ on my mind, not the new LaGuardia, and I remember when I came through, it was a lot. I was just amazed, stunned, and excited. And sitting down and really understanding the vision of how working with the Port Authority and collaborating with them on what it could look like and seeing it to what it is today, it’s pretty cool. Something new is great, but what got me about Terminal B was how thoughtful each touchpoint connected to the experience.”
Noble joined LaGuardia Gateway Partners as Chief Operating Officer in December 2021, reporting to Frank Scremin, “A very dynamic leader,” said Noble. She thought about the value that she and her team could bring to the operations and commercial teams at Terminal B and being able to activate that. “I was very lucky to inherit a great team and to just reach out to them and start doing it.” And activating the experience they did.
With 26 food and beverage establishments, including the Brooklyn Diner and the Panorama Bar, which offer stunning panoramic views of the airport’s skyline, Terminal B has something for everyone. A signature dining experience at the Hunt & Fish Grill incorporated details from one of Noble’s favorite restaurants in NYC, the Hunt & Fish Club. “We were starting to look at the designs for the Hunt & Fish Grill, and we were able to tap right in and make sure that we tied in all the really great and tiny details and quality aspects of the Hunt & Fish Club into the Hunt & Fish Grill.” In addition, other closed deals include the forthcoming Chase Sapphire Lounge and Capital One and PPG Lounge, which will be called Capital One Landing. “The Capital One Landing will actually be a hybrid experience, as we want to make sure that it’s open to everybody.” The hybrid lounge/restaurant will be located at the beginning of the elevated pedestrian bridges, with an enclosed space and an outside view of the tower and the city.
Completed in 2022, the new Terminal B was designed and constructed with a focus on sustainability. Constructed in phases, the terminal became the first airport project to receive LEED v4 Gold Certification, which was awarded in 2021 for the then-completed phases of the project. Upon completion of the remaining phases, LEED v4 Gold was achieved for the overall project.
Following the expectations of sustainability at the terminal, Noble noted how sustainable initiatives are in force through waste aversion, recycling, the banning of plastic straws, launching electric buses for employees who travel from Concourse A to B, and that all vehicles purchased in the future will be electric, even as they work with some of their vendors and partners. The baggage handling system uses about 37% of the energy compared to the prior system, and it goes into sleep mode when the loads start to lighten or senses that there is no baggage. “These are some of the things we continue to do that allow sustainability, and we are constantly looking for ways to work with our retail partners toward using more electric equipment to be built into our refurbishment plan in the future,” explained Noble.
In terms of AI (Artificial Intelligence), Noble said, “We know it’s the future, so we know it is ahead of us, and there are things that we’ve done pretty well.” A couple of the systems in place include tracking passenger flow management through BriefCam software technology, which helps understand flow, wait times, and dwell times to make sure they can capitalize on commercial opportunities at the terminal. Recognizing the elements of people’s pause intuitively assists in helping with their movement, as does leveraging other technology like wayfinding and virtual queuing. “We are continuously having conversations with the TSA around biometrics, as we think about biometric screening from a security screening standpoint, and we’ve have had some pretty robust conversations with them about that. How do we continue leveraging technology to personalize experiences? How do we collaborate with airlines so that we can connect and integrate those pieces?” From an operational perspective, Noble noted that there have been some good conversations with companies looking at aircraft turnaround, expediting movement, and taking that a step higher. “There is really great technology out there that can help us keep a better grasp of the entire apron, resulting in better security, remote security, and safety inspections that can catch and address issues faster, resulting in less damage to equipment. There are elements like that, and we’ve been meeting with companies like SITA (an information technology company specializing in providing IT and telecommunications services to the aviation community) and ASSAIA (Apron Artificial Intelligence for Optimised Airport Operations) to talk about how to leverage the infrastructure that we’ve put in place, like our great camera system’s ability to help understand what is happening in real-time and be more proactive about it,” explained Noble.
Another of the important initiatives at Terminal B is MWBE (Minority & Women-owned Business Enterprises), which Noble and her team are proud of. “I think we upheld our commitment with the Port Authority when it came to MWBE, as well as Terminal B. We actually had more than $910 million in design and construction contracts with over 300 talented MBEs and WBES. Overall, we far exceeded our goal of $687 million. MWBEs account for over 30% of our operations and maintenance, so we are meeting our goal nicely and also achieving 26% ACDBE (Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise). We continue to focus on this as one of our strategic initiatives as we think about operational excellence and engaging our stakeholders,” said Noble.
The question of accessibility to LaGuardia Airport is another issue discussed all the time. The Port Authority is working diligently on increasing bus transportation and ride-share options to increase ridership, which, according to Noble, has almost doubled since the decision was made to shift toward bus shuttle transport.
Public Art is another significant component at LaGuardia in delivering and connecting guests to an excellent airport experience. “I think that what we’ve been able to do with public art at Terminal B, what we’ve been able to do with the Port Authority and at Terminal C is pretty impressive,” exclaimed Noble. “We just opened up the Atrium, which is the business center at Terminal B.” The Port Authority operates the Atrium and offers business travelers various services and capabilities, including on-site airport facilities for meetings and conferences and a café/lounge on the mezzanine level with views of the Manhattan Skyline and airport taxiways and runways.
Richard Lippold’s world-renowned sculpture, Orpheus and Apollo, is on display for the first time in nearly ten years. The sculpture was originally displayed in the Grand Promenade at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall, where it hung from 1962 until 2014. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Port Authority worked together to restore the sculpture and facilitate its installation at LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal B, where it joined the airport’s collection of public artworks that create a unique sense of place for travelers. This has added a whole other level of art to the building. One of the several public art pieces that highlight the guest’s experience from the minute you walk into the terminal is Sarah Sze’s monumental sculpture, ‘Shorter Than the Day,’ which is suspended from the ceiling and evokes the passage of time through an intricate constellation of photographs and appears to float in mid-air. “It’s the special touches along the path that connects the entire experience and that delights our guests,” said Noble, “and then there’s the water feature, which is our most Instagrammed moment at Terminal B. Public Art has been a game changer in aviation and terminal design. Our focus is to minimize, smoothen, and calm the guest experience from curb to gate. It is very noticeable when you get to the water feature, because it starts its projection, the music starts, and out comes the cell phones to capture it. It cools and calms the space and allows everyone to decompress completely, and as the anticipation and anxiety that varies between travelers lessens, guests start to enjoy everything around them. It’s a pausing point that calms.”
Commenting on her vision for the future, Noble said, “We’ve done something that is pretty remarkable at Terminal B. We took the vision from our leaders at the Port Authority and now say, ‘Okay, let’s figure out how we can continue to offer an experience that guests would absolutely love.’ How do we continue to connect the experience and make it more seamless than it is today? And that is by constantly challenging ourselves, getting out there, understanding technology, and how we can think about expediting experiences, whether through self-baggage check and tracking, biometrics, or whether that is to create other experiences that our guests would love. If that is curb-to-gate, maybe it’s also home-to-gate so that we can communicate with our guests prior to their experience at the terminal, allowing them to make better decisions about the time they spend with us. All those elements come together for a 5- or 6-Star experience, and that is what we need to do. Getting a 5-star rating from Skytrax was tough; sustaining 5-stars is going to be even tougher. But when you get to know me better, you realize that there is no ceiling, so we are going for six stars, even though Skytrax doesn’t have a 6-star rating; but maybe we will inspire that!”
