While sitting at the gate without knowing the status of your flight is not pleasant during any time of the year, it is particularly annoying during the holidays.
Many still remember the Holiday Fiasco of 2022 when a combination of bad weather and a breakdown of Southwest Airlines LUV's software system left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded at airports across the country during the days of December 26 and 27. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg even had to step in and push the airline to resolve the problem faster.
Related: Southwest Airlines Explanation For Holiday Disruptions Is Underwhelming
While the software breakdown was a crisis unforeseen by both travelers and the airline, some airports have higher rates of delays in general and during the holidays in particular.
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You are particularly likely to get stuck with a flight from these airports
A new report looking at flight data from Nov. 18, 2022 to Jan. 4, 2023 by online gambling platform aGamble.com identified Chicago's Midway International Airport as the worst airport in the country for holiday travel last year.
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The smaller airport closer to downtown Chicago than O'Hare had 1,138 flight delays and 2,022 cancelations between mid-November and January — 42.9% of the total flights that took off during that time period.
Orlando International Airport was not far behind with 879 delays and 5,222 cancelations. As the airport is significantly busier than Midway, those numbers represent 42% of all flights that took off.
"If you're departing from Chicago Midway International, hopefully it's to a warm destination because you'll need some fresh air after discovering that your flight has been canceled," write the study's authors.
Here are some other bad (and good) airports for your holiday travel this year
While last year's experiences may not necessarily be replicated during the 2023 holiday period, other airports to make the top five include Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International in Florida, William P. Hobby in Houston and the Love Field Airport in Dallas — in general, secondary airports in larger cities tended to fare particularly badly when it comes to cancelations and delays.
"The first airport on the list servicing strictly domestic flights, Houston's William P. Hobby Airport has experienced steady growth in passenger numbers since switching its focus to smooth internal travel," reads the report. "But there's room to improve on their new purpose: 41% of departures were canceled throughout the holiday season last year."
Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Tampa International Airport were some of the larger airports to land in the top ten. In the latter, 493 and 2,224 flights were respectively delayed and canceled. Delays are less common than cancelations because any delay long enough to make the data numbers usually leads to an eventual cancelation.
While Newark Liberty International Airport tended to score badly when it comes to delays in other reports, this study placed it squarely in the middle — 3,866 delays and 477 cancelations put it at 32.9% of all holiday flights and 25th on the list.
San Antonio International Airport, meanwhile, was at 38.2% of all flights taking off and 10th out of all the airports looked at in the report — better than many others but still in the top ten of the bad list.
