The American Airport With the Most Cancellations

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
The American Airport With the Most Cancellations

© martin-dm / E+ via Getty Images

Flying has been a nightmare for months. Airport delays and flight cancellations have been caused by pilot and crew shortages, bad weather and inadequate reservation systems. The industry was not prepared for the surge in customer demand after it almost disappeared due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many planes were put out of service and had to be brought back online. Some carriers even have offered pilots who retired bonuses to return to service.

Customer satisfaction has plunged. For carriers, it does not matter. Demand is so great that even disgruntled passengers will get on flights. Violent incidents involving passengers have not throttled back the number of people who want to travel by air.

Delays and cancellations are much worse at some airports than others.

Bloomberg reports that AirHelp made a survey of 37,000 cancellations across 400 U.S. airports from May 27 through July 15. This includes the heavy Memorial Day and July 4 weekends, well known for heavy travel. The average number of flight cancellations by airport was 2.6%.
[nativounit]
The two airports with the worst cancellation rates serve the greater New York City area. The first is LaGuardia, named after a New York City mayor. It has an odd place in America’s airport systems. Its short runways do not allow it to service large jets. Therefore, it gets no traffic from the west coast or overseas. It is close to the city and known for crowded parking, lengthy check-in lines and unusually long periods to get through security checks. Of the outgoing flights from LaGuardia in the measured period, 7.7% were canceled.

The airport with the second highest number of cancellations only became a major airport for New York travelers a few decades ago. Newark Liberty International airport is well outside the city. It was once rarely used for passenger planes. Today, it serves many people from the west side of New York and the parts of New Jersey that are in the metro area. A total of 7.6% of the flights out of Newark were canceled.
[wallst_email_signup]
Interestingly, the third major New York airport, the John F. Kennedy International, was not among the top 10 airports with the highest cancellation rates.
[recirclink id=1137990]
The other airports with the worst cancellation rates are scattered across the country, from Washington to Cleveland to Miami. No matter what the location, the problem is bound to get worse.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618