A Review of California’s Oldest and “America’s Coolest Airport”
Long Beach Airport (LGB)
4100 Donald Douglas Dr.
Long Beach, CA 90808
- A Review of California's Oldest and "America's Coolest Airport"
- LGB: America's Coolest Airport
- 1. It's a Boutique Airport
- 2. The Easy Drop-Off/Pick-Up Area
- 3. The Quick Check-In
- 4. Security at Long Beach Airport is Super Chill
- 5. Waiting in the Fresh Air at Long Beach Airport
- 6. Food and Drinks
- 7. Boarding from the Tarmac
- 8. (De)Boarding from the Back of the Plane
- 9. The Breezy Baggage Claim at Long Beach Airport
- 10. The Location
- TL;DR: Long Beach Airport (LGB)
LGB: America’s Coolest Airport
Did you know that Long Beach Airport (LGB) is California’s oldest airport?
Neither did I. Once you visit though, you’ll realize why this roost for restless planes has survived for more than a century. It makes 21st-century flying easy – like the good old days. And that’s not just because the circa-1940 terminal still stands, Streamline Moderne-cool.
Rather, it’s because the whole pre-flight process is streamlined. Mellifluous. Flowing. As gentle as a California beach breeze. Some may see Long Beach Airport’s petiteness as a flaw, but that’s the secret to its magic: its a bustling airport that never feels too busy.
When you visit, you’ll quickly realize why the airport’s trademarked tagline is “america’s coolest airport” – lowercase letters and all.
1. It’s a Boutique Airport
As of December 2025, just three airlines perch at Long Beach Airport – Southwest, Hawaiian, and Delta.
Delta only flies to Salt Lake City, and Hawaiian only flies to Maui and Honolulu. Thus, LGB is really Southwest’s domain. While this might seem limited, it makes everything so much simpler.
There are no harried passengers searching for their carrier. There are no flight schedule boards palpitating gate changes. There’s just Southwest and its big blue planes napping out on the tarmac, waiting to carry us into the big blue sky.
Although LGB is a regional airport, Southwest flies non-stop to 21 U.S. cities, including all the way to the East Coast. And there are sufficient departures per day, even with the noise ordinance limiting commercial airline operating hours to 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Despite Southwest’s recent customer service nosedive, it’s still a decent value. LGB Southwest flights are typically cheaper than LAX Southwest flights. And although Southwest can’t compete with budget airline prices, the small premium is worth it to use Long Beach Airport.
2. The Easy Drop-Off/Pick-Up Area
Large airport loading zones are brutal: cars crowd as anxious travelers struggle to unload their luggage and the traffic officers whistle too much for anyone to know who the hell they’re directing, so we all blurt farewells amidst a cacophony of fipple flutes.
None of this happens at Long Beach Airport because there just aren’t enough passengers to cause chaos. The drop-off zone is simply the curb in front of the historic terminal and it’s reached by following Donald Douglas Drive past the parking garages.
Missed the drop-off? Just loop around again on the same road and you’ll be back to the curb in literally one minute, where there are plenty of open spaces. This curb doubles as the pick-up area for passenger cars. Rideshares pick up right across a crosswalk, along the bench-laden median that briefly splits Donald Douglas Drive.
The Always Empty Cell Phone Waiting Lot at Long Beach Airport
If your ride home ever gets to the airport too early, they can hang out in the free cell phone parking lot just down D.D. Drive. It’s free for up to an hour, it’s never full, and it’s 30 seconds away from the pick-up zone. It really doesn’t get easier than this at an airport.
3. The Quick Check-In
Actually it does get easier, beginning with the check-in at Long Beach Airport.
Big airports mean more terminals and more ways to get lost while lugging luggage. At LGB, chances are, everyone’s looking for the Southwest check-in, and it’s literally right there.
Southwest Kiosks at Long Beach Airport
The historic terminal is under renovation, so passengers check in within the circa-2022 glassy, glossy Ticketing Building. My usual route is this: I get dropped off at the curb, walk about 25 feet outdoors to the lobby, then head to one of the many open Southwest kiosks right inside.
I scan my mobile boarding pass to pull up my reservation. As a Southwest credit card holder, I get one free checked bag, which the kiosk knows because I inputted my RR number at booking. If I bring extra checked bags, I add and pay for them at the kiosk. The machine spits out my luggage stickers, along with my paper boarding pass because I like something to crumple.
I often see new travelers go into a tizzy at this first step, eyes rolling bovine-like as they look around wildly, lost in the little airport, vainly asking fellow travelers, What do we scan? What goes where? And when it gets to the next step – the looping the sticker around the bag handle stage – full panic sets in. One sticky side must connect to another sticky side, but how? The deadline of their flight leaving in 3 hours looms as they sorrowfully try to tag their bags like toes in a morgue.
Bag Drop-Off
Once that’s done, I pocket the claim sticker I peeled off (my bag receipt and more crumpling material), then walk into the zig-zag queue to hand my luggage to one of the always pleasant (even at the butt-crack of dawn) Southwest agents. They ask to see ID and then I heft my under-50-pounds suitcase onto the scale.
And that’s it! The longest ticketing ever took for me was 15 minutes and that was during the November 2025 FAA flight cancellations.
4. Security at Long Beach Airport is Super Chill
From the Ticketing Lobby, I head right back outside to the Long Beach Airport TSA checkpoint, which is a zig-zag of crowd control ropes visible from the drop-off area.
The queue is rarely stuffed beyond the first zig. The line moves quickly into the building where everyone shows their Real ID/passport and smiles for the government camera. In fact, the line goes almost too fast: I’m always at the shoes-off-step sooner than —
Wait, today shoes are on? And my laptop stays in the bag? But I can’t have my boarding pass in my pocket?
Perhaps the TSA intentionally changes things up so nobody can figure it out and exploit the procedures. Whatever the case, going through airport security is never fun, but at least at Long Beach Airport, it’s quick and the staff are pretty casual.
The final security boss is the bag X-Ray machine. After walking through the full body scan, everyone has to wait for their belongings to push through the little conveyor belt curtains like a play being born.
Sometimes they don’t come because they got flagged. Don’t fret. Countless people forget to empty their water bottles. They just get sent outside to water the plants and start over in the security line.
When I flew during the shutdown, Long Beach Airport was the busiest I’ve seen it. Still, security didn’t take longer than 20 minutes to get through. Easy peasy.
5. Waiting in the Fresh Air at Long Beach Airport
Airports are labyrinths: there’s your gate, stuck deep in some alphanumeric intestines that digest thousands of passengers and excrete them into the sky.
Long Beach Airport has none of this. As mentioned, the drop-off zone is covered only by blue California sky, as is the brief walk into the Ticketing Lobby. Most airports force passengers deeper inside after ticketing, but at LGB, you escape back outside to the TSA line. And after security, you head right back outside, but on the inside.
Welcome to the atrium. To the left and right, the South and North Concourse buildings hold the flight gates, but you’re welcome to wait out in the fresh air, away from the coughing crowds. Out here, there’s desert landscaping, palm trees, and a view of the tarmac through window panes that look like flickering movie stills when the planes take off.
I like to wander inside the concourse, find my gate, then escape back outdoors to wait. I almost always end up with time to spare at LGB because of how quickly security moves.
The best part is that I never feel like I’m trapped. If I turn around from watching the planes, I can see right through the gate to the drop-off zone. Long Beach Airport has exceptional visibility: its literal and figurative transparency is unmatched. Everyone can see each part of the system from both the inside and outside, so we all know exactly where to go before being carried into thin air.
6. Food and Drinks
The North and South Concourses host mini versions of real Long Beach restaurants, like dioramas of the beach city.
The South Concourse contains Boathouse on the Bay and Sheldrake Coffee/Sweet Jill’s Bakery. The larger North Concourse also has the latter, along with Taco Beach Cantina, George’s Greek Cafe, 4th Street Vine Wine & Beer Bar, and Long Beach Burger Bar.
Even for crusty-eyed morning flights, the restaurants are open and throbbing with life. Guests chase coffee with glimmering glasses of deep purple wine as the heat lamps shoo away the cool morning air.
I wouldn’t go out of the way for any airport food or drinks because they’re overpriced. But if you’re hungry, LGB dining features faster service and better ambience relative to other airports. You can’t beat drinking a beer on a barstool in coastal California sunlight before playing Daedalus. Of all the options, Boathouse – both its mother restaurant and this flying field offspring – has the best price-to-value ratio.
7. Boarding from the Tarmac
Long Beach airport isn’t just convenient: it’s quirky and intimate, with features like tarmac boarding.
LGB is one of the few major airports that doesn’t use jet bridges. I love it. Jet bridges perpetuate the claustrophobia that permeates most airports: deeper we all go, shuffling like cattle down the wobbly little bridge.
At Long Beach, I get to walk outside as the local hawks drift high above, peering at gophers twitching in the grass strips. It’s a SoCal city, so the weather almost always accommodates outdoor boarding.
The only thing keeping people from wandering off are some delicate crowd-control lines, like pencil marks on big, gray construction paper. The breeze is stronger out here, unchecked by trees and buildings. How lovely to be able to breathe fresh air before settling inside the plane! How fine our mechanical bird looks, shiny and cloud-washed!
Nearby, other planes roam and roll around, gently coming to rest in their own nests. We’re witness to all of this and to the baggage handlers loading our luggage into the plane. It’s all so very calm and simple when we’re allowed to see the whole of the parts.
8. (De)Boarding from the Back of the Plane
Even better than boarding from the tarmac is being able to board/disembark from both the front and back at Long Beach Airport.
During the Southwest open-seating era, this meant a better chance at an aisle or window seat. During the forthcoming assigned seats era, I assume it will mean more efficient boarding, with people flowing in from both ends. The only downside is being stuck at the rear at your destination, since most other airports only board from the front.
Thus, it’s a secret that works better when flying into LGB. If you get the last seat on the plane when you board in Baltimore, you’ll be the first person out of the back door when you arrive in Long Beach.
9. The Breezy Baggage Claim at Long Beach Airport
After disembarking from the plane, passengers wind back across the tarmac, into the concourse, out to the atrium, and through the single security gate.
The breezy baggage claim is just to the left. This spacious, open-air building contains two lazy carousels. On average, luggage starts shooting out of the chute 15 minutes after disembarking from the plane.
There are some chairs, but most people press closely to the carousel, waiting to snatch their pink and green and grey bags like bears nabbing fish from a clear river.
After doing the same, it’s a mere 20-second jot out to the pick-up spot, so better order that Uber sooner rather than later.
10. The Location
Long Beach Airport is actually more centrally located than LAX.
It’s 20 minutes from the beach. It’s 20 minutes from Orange County. It’s 20 minutes from the thick of Los Angeles County. It’s a two-hour drive to Palm Springs. And more importantly, it’s not chokered by gridlocked traffic like LAX perpetually is.
As a Long Beach resident who discovered the airport after I moved here, my flying frequency increased by 80% just because of how stress-free LGB is. As long as I book my Southwest flight at least three weeks out, I can fly cheap and easy from “america’s coolest airport.”
Even Santa Ana isn’t as cool as LGB. And that’s why The Washington Post ranked Long Beach Airport as #2 in the nation among the 50 best airports in 2025.