WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. – A Michigan airport ranked in North America’s top three customer-satisfactory mega airports.
The rankings in the study by J.D. Power are divided into airport sizes—Mega, large and medium. 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 million to 9.9 million passengers per year.
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The study was fielded from August 2023 through July 2024 and is based on 26,290 completed surveys from U.S. or Canadian residents who traveled to at least one U.S. or Canadian airport that covers both departure and arrival experiences during the past 30 days. It measures the following:
- Departure/to experience
- Food, beverage and retail
- Arrival/from airport experience
In the mega airport category, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport ranked highest in passenger satisfaction among all mega airports. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport ranked second, and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport ranked third.
John Wayne Airport, Orange County ranks highest among large airports. Tampa International Airport ranks second, and Kansas City International Airport ranks third.
Indianapolis International Airport ranks highest among medium airports for a third consecutive year. Jacksonville International Airport ranks second, and Southwest Florida International Airport ranks third.
“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. “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.”
J.D. Power provided the following key findings in the 2024 study:
- Airports successfully navigate record passenger volumes: Despite record numbers of passengers and widespread flight cancellations and delays, 60% of North American airport passengers say they “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” they enjoyed spending time in their airport. Another 59% say they agree that their airport helped alleviate travel stress.
- Rising costs may finally be reaching a breaking point: For many years, the single lowest-scoring attribute in the study has been the reasonableness of food and beverage pricing—but it has not really affected passengers’ overall satisfaction. That trend may be ending, however. On average, passengers this year spent $3.53 per person less than they did in 2023 on food, beverage and other items in the terminal. The decline is greatest among large airports, where passengers have reduced their spending by an average of $6.31.
- More airports delivering on unique, local identity: One of the key performance indicators separating top-performing airports from those that passengers merely tolerate is unique décor, signage, stores and restaurants that celebrate the region. Overall, 70% of passengers agree their airport reflects a genuine sense of its city or region.
- Crowding significantly affects airport scores: The average overall satisfaction score when airport terminals are perceived as “not at all crowded” is 736 (on a 1,000-point scale). That score plummets to 429 when terminals are perceived as “severely crowded.” However, just 5% of passengers say they experienced severely crowded conditions in 2024.
