Best and Worst Airports in North America
As air travel demand spiked this year, we saw lots of issues around the country and the world. Delays and cancellations have been a big issue, as well as lost and delayed baggage.
Passenger volume in the U.S. is nearing pre-pandemic levels. On Sunday, the US Transportation Security Administration screened 2,371,992 passengers at airport checkpoints. That’s 94% of the same weekday in 2019.
But, those travelers are met with fewer flights, more crowded terminals and limited food and beverage options, the new J.D. Power 2022 North America Airport Satisfaction Study says.
The overall satisfaction is down 25 points on a 1,000 point scale when compared to 2021.
Some big declines in traveler satisfaction this year are found in the parking lot, where a shortage of space has caused satisfaction with surface parking lots to decline 45 points from 2021. Meanwhile, 14% of travelers say parking was more expensive than they expected, up from 12% in 2021 and 11% in 2019.
More than half (58%) of airport travelers describe the airport terminal as severely or moderately crowded, nearly in line with 2019 when 59% of travelers said their airport was severely/moderately crowded.
Now in its 17th year, the study is based on 26,529 completed surveys from U.S. or Canadian residents who traveled through at least one U.S. or Canadian airport and covers both departure and arrival experiences (including connecting airports) during the past 30 days.
Best Airports
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport ranks highest in passenger satisfaction among mega airports with a score of 800. San Francisco International Airport (796) ranks second while Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (791) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (791) each rank third in a tie.
Tampa International Airport ranks highest among large airports with a score of 846. John Wayne Airport, Orange County (826) ranks second and Dallas Love Field (825) ranks third.
Indianapolis International Airport ranks highest among medium airports with a score of 842. Pittsburgh International Airport (839) ranks second while Jacksonville International Airport (826) and Southwest Florida International Airport (826) each rank third in a tie.
Mega airports are defined as those with 33 million or more passengers per year; large airports with 10 to 32.9 million passengers per year; and medium airports with 4.5 to 9.9 million passengers per year.
Worst Airports
At the other end of the spectrum, Newark Liberty International Airport had the worst score among mega-airports. And it wasn’t even close to the second and third worst, O’Hare International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
For Large airports, the worst airport was Philadelphia International Airport, which again was far behind in scoring from the next worst two, Honolulu International Airport and Kansas City International Airport.
For medium airports, the ranking at the bottom was a bit tighter. Hollywood Burbank Airport ranked last, followed by Kahului Airport and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Rankings
See the full rankings below and on J.D. Power’s website:
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
I don’t think that the Minneapolis airport is actually better, but I think that the residents who are frequent flyers are nice people in general, so they gave their home airport a great rating..
LGA will be on the list next year. I just flew out from there to Minneapolis and I couldn’t believe I can finally say, “I LOVE FLYING OUT OF LGA!”