National Travels: Snaking through Country’s Best and Worst Airports

National travels will be in focus this week as Thanksgiving is bringing a new high to travel statistics while the country climbs out of pandemic isolation. To that end, several surveys recently showcase the best and the worst airports for traveling through — and where to get stuck if you can or not get stuck, if you can avoid it. 

A national traveler satisfaction study by J.D. Power look at with North American airports.  Now, as global passenger volume ticks back up to pre-pandemic levels, labor shortages have been causing a record number of flight cancellations. So, those once sky-high satisfaction scores have fall — down 25 points (on a 1,000-point scale) this year as travelers encounter fewer flights, more crowds terminals and sparse food and beverage offerings.

“The combination of pent-up demand for air travel, the nationwide labor shortage and steadily rising prices on everything from jet fuel to a bottle of water have create a scenario in which airports are extremely crowds and passengers are increasingly frustrate—and it is likely to continue through 2023,” said Michael Taylor, travel intelligence lead at J.D. Power. “In some ways, this is a return to normal as larger crowds at airports tend to make travelers more frazzle, but in cases where parking lots are over capacity, gates are standing room only and restaurants and bars are not even open to offer some reprieve, it is clear that increase capacity in airports can’t come soon enough.”

Following are some key findings of the 2022 national travels study:

• Crowds back to pre-pandemic levels: Overall customer satisfaction with North American airports falls 25 points to 777 this year amid rampant flight cancellations and crowd terminals. More than half (58%) of airport travelers describe the airport terminal as severely or moderately crowd, nearly in line with 2019 when 59% of travelers said their airport was severely/moderately crowd.
• Inflation hits the airport: Nearly one-fourth (24%) of travelers say they did not make any food or beverage purchases at the airport because they were too expensive. That’s up from 20% in 2021 and 23% in 2019. Similarly, traveler satisfaction with the reasonableness of food and beverage pricing declines this year.
• Nowhere to park: Some big declines in traveler satisfaction this year are found in the parking lot, where a shortage of space has cause 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.

According to the J.D. Power survey: 

+ 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.

National Travels

The 2022 national travels survey measures overall traveler satisfaction with mega, large and medium North American airports by examining six factors (in order of importance): terminal facilities; airport arrival/departure; baggage claim; security check; check-in/baggage check; and food, beverage and retail. Mega airports are define 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.

A look at national travel patterns through the nation’s airports by the Wall Street Journal determined that San Francisco International Airport deserved the top spot, if only for the fact that flights are gaged as on-time some 80 percent of the time. The airport is easy to navigate from parking through security, and there are multiple security checkpoints to ease the usual bottlenecks that happen at airports with centralized screening. 

To that point, Upgrades Points releases a national travel study this week that determine which airports had the longest and shortest wait times at Immigration and Customs. Drawing directly on data compiled from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the study explore and rank wait times across the 34 of the busiest U.S. airports, including the best and worst hours and days of the week to go through the line. The results were then compily, analyze, and place in an interactive digital map and a series of tables. Both the shortest and longest wait times were found to non-localize, and are spread out over multiple major airports across the country.

Immigration and Customs: Longest and Shortest Times

• Longest —Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL): Located in Florida, FLL ranked number one on the list of longest Immigration and Customs wait times, with an average wait time of 31.95 minutes. The best time to travel internationally through FLL is on a Wednesday, between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., with an average wait time of around 11 minutes. Other note airports with the longest wait times include Miami International, JFK, and San Francisco International, all with average wait times above 20 minutes.
• Shortest — Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX): Arizona’s capital can boast the quickest customs-line wait times in the nation, with an average of 5 minutes. North Carolina travelers can expect a wait time of less than 10 minutes at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), while STL, DEN, BWI, and DTW all came in with an average wait time under 12 minutes.

Airports With the Quickest and Slowest Times for Clearance

• Quickest— Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX): With over 88% of passengers clear within 15 minutes or less, you can count on this Arizona airport for a speedy ordeal through the line.
• Slowest—Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL): While 53% of passengers get clear in 15 minutes or less across all airports analyze, FLL clears just 16% of their passengers in less than 15 minutes. Salt Lake City International is the second slowest airport, but more than doubles FLL’s numbers, with nearly 36% of passengers cleared in 15 minutes or less.

At the bottom of the list for the largest U.S. airports for most categories: Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). 

“EWR is being swamp by passenger volume and much of its infrastructure just hasn’t kept pace with that demand,” said Taylor in a published article. “It’s locate in a heavy automobile traffic spot and that doesn’t help its access scores—and if passengers are stressed getting to the airport, they tend to stay stresses throughout the whole experience.”

For national travels this Thanksgiving, moving through nation’s larger airports may not be so forgiving. But for prescient travelers heading for some of the smaller cities, less will be more.