There’s probably no worse feeling in the world of travel than watching the flight board and seeing your flight change from “On Time” to “Delayed,” or even worse…”Canceled.” With the holiday season coming up, this is especially true. Airports will be busier, flight schedules are more hectic, and delays or cancellations are more likely to upend your holiday plans.
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The Airports With the Most Flight Delays and Cancellations This Year
Indeed, airline insight blog IPX 1031 surveyed 1,000 Americans about their travel plans, and found that 35 percent are worried about airport delays and cancellations during the 2023 holiday season. 23 percent have already experienced a delay or cancellation this year. Despite these relatively high numbers, 84 percent are not planning to buy travel insurance for the 2023 holiday season, showing that concern about cancellation is not, perhaps, enough to motivate real precautionary measures.
To determine which airports in the US have the most delays and cancellations, and which are the busiest, IPX analyzed data from the US Department of Transportation. We don’t always have control over which airport we fly out of or into – unfortunately, this is often dictated by simple geography – but it can be helpful to know which airports are particularly prone to delays and cancellations. As you’ll see below, some airports have an over 25 percent chance of delays, and over 2 percent chance of canceling a flight altogether. Here’s the breakdown:
Airports with the most delays
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International – 32%
- McCarran International (Las Vegas, NV) – 29%
- Orlando International & Denver International- 29%
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall- 28%
- Chicago Midway International- 27%
Airports with the most cancellations
- Dallas Love Field- 2.6%
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International- 2.5%
- Newark Liberty International (Newark, NJ)- 2.5%
- LaGuardia (New York, NY)- 2.5%
- Dallas/Fort Worth International- 2.5%
Busiest airports
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International- 45.3M
- Dallas/Fort Worth International- 35.3M
- Denver International- 33.7M
- Chicago O’Hare International- 33.1M
- Los Angeles International- 32.3M
