The Daily Beast set out to definitively sort the best and the worst, undertaking a comprehensive study that heavily factored in on-time arrivals and departures, and also examined safety records, tarmac nightmares, airport accessibility, the baggage process, security waits, and amenities.
The answers defied easy categorization. The top three—Houston’s Bush Intercontinental, Los Angeles’ LAX and Phoenix’s Sky Harbor—are the kind of big airport hubs people tend to dread. The bottom of the list, meanwhile, is full of several airports that have sometimes been considered state-of-the-art.
Not every problem is the airport’s fault. A Federal Aviation Authority computer glitch last Thursday caused backups at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and other airports around the country, as did a similar glitch in August 2008. Weather, too, can be a major cause of delays. (No wonder that our top three airports are also in temperate climes.)
But sometimes delays are indeed attributable at least in part to airports and airlines that overbook flights. “The number of times I’ve taken off on time at La Guardia or JFK in the late afternoon I can count on one hand,” says Rudy Maxa, the travel writer and public television and radio host. “All you have to do is look at the airline schedule and see the number of flights that take off at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. at Chicago O’Hare. You know it’s physically impossible to have that many flights take off.”
