The Best and Worst North American Airports Ranked

Travelers have their opinions about which airports they like to travel through—and which just aren’t cutting it for them. 

As part of the 2024 J.D. Power North America Airport Satisfaction Study, travelers rated airports based on customer satisfaction in categories, including: ease of travel, terminal facilities, airport staff, and more.

The Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport took first place in a ranking of passenger satisfaction among mega airports—which are those with 33 million or more passengers a year. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Michigan and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona closely followed.

Newark Liberty International Airport ranked last on the list, with Toronto Pearson International and Chicago’s O’Hare also at the bottom. Results were based on a survey of more than 26,000 U.S. and Canada residents that traveled through at least one U.S. or Canadian airport.

In a ranking of large airports, which see around 10 to 32.9 million travelers a year, John Wayne Airport, Orange County Airport in California took the top spot for customer satisfaction followed by airports in Tampa, Florida, and Kansas City. Philadelphia held the worst spot, with customers giving it a 541 point ranking out of a 1,000-point scale.

Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Southwest Florida, were crowned as the top three winners for medium-sized airports.   

Despite some executives claiming demand for air travel is normalizing, more than three million people went through security checkpoints at North American airports on a singular day in July, setting a new traffic high. The International Air Transport Association also found that total demand for travel for July went up 8% compared to July 2023, despite disruptions caused by the CrowdStrike IT outage.

“Huge air travel demand has not slowed down in North America, despite the steadily rising costs of flights, ground travel, hotel rooms and pretty much anything you can buy in an airport,” said Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality and retail at J.D. Power in a press release. “Most travelers are still enjoying the experience. However, we are starting to see a breaking point in consumer spending, with average spend per person in the terminal declining significantly from a year ago.”