There's no doubt airports are bustling and frenetic places: flights coming and going, luggage checked and collected, friends and family saying hello and goodbye, businesspeople and tourists scurrying about.
So, given all that quick here-and-there, what airport might have come out on top as the best U.S. airport?
Would you believe RSW?
The staff at Travel Lens, a digital publication dedicated to travel articles about worldwide destinations, best hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars, and more pitted the 50 busiest US airports against each other to find the best in the country based on a range of factors, including wait times, passenger satisfaction levels, and CO2 emissions.
The U.S. is home to more than 5,000 public airports that provide flights for millions of passengers every year and with a duty to deliver good service.
That RSW came out on top should be no surprise. For the most part, anyone who has traversed Southwest Florida International Airport — RSW is its airport industry code — knows it's fairly compact and easy to get around.
Ben Siegel, executive director and CEO of the airport, said the ratings do mean something to the airport.
"Well, I think, you know, the recognition like this means a lot to I think our employees and our business partners and just knowing that all the hard work that they put in to making the travel experience one of a kind is paying off. These Google reviews and stuff, people, you know, that they're not shy about complaining about when things aren't going right," Siegel said. "So, you know, being recognized for all of these categories, in general customer satisfaction, wait times, things of that nature really shows that, we're all you know, these airports are like little cities and they were all everything that we're doing is really is really being recognized by by the community and all the travelers here at the airport. So it's really nice."
Siegel added that the expansion project ongoing at RSW will boost ratings like these in the future.
"There's certainly a possibility as construction gets a little more in depth, you know, over the next year and a half to two years, that the experience here at the airport may change, we're going to do everything we can to avoid that," he said. "But I will say that the project that we're under construction for, the first phase of our terminal expansion, is really going to amp up what we already have. We're recognized as being a very user friendly, easy to navigate through airport. And we're going to continue not only with that model, but we're going to have a whole array of new retail and food and beverage concessions, an easier way to navigate through our security checkpoints, a lot more flexibility for the for the traveling public when they do go through the checkpoints. So it's going to really, really amp up the overall travel experience that you know people will have here."
Here are the parameters and just how our own "little" Southwest Florida airport came out on top:
Southwest Florida International Crowned Best Airport
To kick off this airport report Travel Lens staff combined a range of factors, including passenger satisfaction, wait times, and pollution levels, to determine which US airports are the best. Here's their results.
1. Southwest Florida International (RSW) - Airport Rating of 8.06 /10
Taking the top spot, with an airport rating of 8.06 /10, was Southwest Florida International.
As suggested by the name, this airport is located in the bottom half of Florida and boasts a Google review rating of 4.5 /5. Although it may not be the biggest airport in terms of area, it is currently the second-busiest single-runway airport in the U.S. B
Bearing this in mind, it makes it all the more impressive that they have a short average wait time of just 16 minutes as well as low pollution levels. Spending some time researching the best things to do in Southwest Florida will ensure that the rest of your holiday is as good as the journey.
Bringing up the remaining top 10 airports are:
- John Wayne, Orange County, California, 7.96/10
- Portland International, Oregon. 7.86/10
- Tampa International, Tampa. 7.76/10
- Dallas Love Field, Texas. 7.35/10
- Sacramento International, California. 7.30/10
- Indianapolis International, Indiana. 7.10/10
- Harry Reid International, Nevada. 6.89/10
- Baltimore/Washington International, Thurgood Marshall. 6.63/10
- Washington Dulles International. 6.58/10
Wish we could say RSW took the lead in every category, but at least another Florida airport did win out for most satisfied passengers.
1. Tampa International (TPA) - Passenger Satisfaction score of 846 /1000
Taking the top spot in this list is Tampa International with a satisfaction score of 8.46 /10.00. If you are unsure of where to stay in Tampa then you needn't worry as Tampa’s state of Florida is a popular holiday destination with lots of excellent accommodations to match the high standards set by this airport.
RSW did come in at fourth place in this category and also fourth among the most highly-regarded airports with John Wayne Airport tops in that category.
With many people taking steps to reduce the effects of climate change, many industries are also doing their bit. With this in mind, Travel Lens checked which airports are currently producing the least amount of CO2 emissions.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International came in tops with 79g/km of CO2 emissions per passenger. RSW placed second with a slightly higher reading of 82g/km of CO2 emissions per passenger.
Travel Lens touted RSW for practicing sustainability, including the use of LED light fixtures and solar panels throughout its terminals. The survey also highlighted Southwest Florida International initiatives to encourage passengers to adopt more eco-conscious lifestyle choices, including water refill stations in an attempt to reduce the purchase of plastic bottles.
Southwest Florida International Airport is also acknowledged as one of the top 50 U.S. airports for passenger traffic. For more information, visit flylcpa.com or facebook.com/flyRSW.
How they did it / methodology
Here's how Travel Lens computed its findings:
Used FAA data to create a list of the 50 busiest airports in the US based on the number of passengers.
Used J.D Power to find the passenger satisfaction rating for each airport. The passenger satisfaction score was on a 1000-point scale (with 1000 being the highest satisfaction).
We use AWT to gather the average wait times for each airport from the 15th of January 2023.
Searched each airport on Google Maps and took the average star rating (out of 5) for each airport to find those with the best reviews.
Used Airport Tracker to reveal the CO2 emissions produced by each airport per passenger (grams CO2 per passenger km).
Using all of the aforementioned factors (passenger satisfaction, wait time, Google review scores and CO2 emissions), Travel Lens was able to give each airport an overall rating by normalizing each factor out of 10 and taking an average of these scores.
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