An Offshore Airport for New York? Bring Your Airline Questions for Captain Steve

For some time now, Captain Steve, a pilot with a major U.S. airline (and one of the nicest humans you’ll ever meet), has been answering your questions about flying. He has commented on everything from cabin air to maintenance problems and ticket prices. It’s been a while since we had him here, however, and since there’s no shortage of airline headlines — including an eventful winter for weather interruptions — we thought it was time to bring him back for another round of questions. So fire away in the comments section below, and we’ll post his answers shortly thereafter. I’ll prime the pump with a question of my own:

Steve, not long ago, I had occasion to fly into Hong Kong International Airport and, well — wow. It’s a very good airport in many ways but, to me, what’s most impressive is how it sits on an island outside the city, the product of a land-reclamation project, and how it therefore handles massive traffic by auto, bus, and rail without ruining traffic in the city itself.
On this blog, we’ve discussed the crowded New York airspace, and how closing LaGuardia might in fact alleviate that problem. So let’s blue-sky for a moment. What would happen if — against all existing political and financial obstacles — such an airport could be built offshore to serve New York? Talk to us about what such an airport would look like, what it would accomplish (or fail to), how large it would need to be to handle existing and future New York air traffic, etc. And most of all: what would such an airport be like from a pilot’s perspective?