Thanksgiving is coming, and we all know what that means: Family gatherings, complete with eccentric relatives; plenty of football on TV; far too much turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and all the rest; and – maybe, if we’re unlucky – hours spent in an inhospitable airport waiting area for hours while our flight to the feast or back home again is endlessly delayed.
Because winter weather is setting in across much of the country by the latter part of November, and because the four-day Thanksgiving weekend inevitably sees (along with Christmas) the largest crowds trying to fly somewhere, delays are inevitable.
Some airports are regularly plagued with more problems than others, of course. To determine the 10 U.S. airports that have repeatedly had the most flight delays – a good if not unerring predictor of those that will be most problematic over Thanksgiving – 24/7 Tempo consulted a study compiled by insuremytrip, a travel insurance comparison site.
The site’s data team analyzed the latest flight delay data for the first half of 2023 gathered by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The rankings cover the country’s 75 busiest airports based on flight arrivals.
While the airports with the most flight cancellations are overwhelmingly on the East Coast, a region more likely to suffer severe weather conditions this time of year, the top airports for flight delays, perhaps counterintuitively, are in warm-weather portions of the country – Florida (which occupies five places on this list), California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Puerto Rico. (For customer satisfaction and other factors, these are America’s 26 worst airports.)
Most travelers have only limited options when choosing an airport, so if the one you have to use has a bad record for delays, there’s not much you can do about it – except maybe to build in some extra time and bring along plenty of reading material or other amusements.
See the U.S. airports with the most flight delays in 2023
10. Ontario International Airport
- Location: Ontario, CA
- Airport code: ONT
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 25.6% (tie)
9. San Francisco International Airport
- Location: San Francisco, CA
- Airport code: SFO
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 25.6% (tie)
8. Jacksonville International Airport
- Location: Jacksonville, FL
- Airport code: JAX
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 26.30%
7. Daniel K. Inouye International Airport
- Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
- Airport code: HNL
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 26.80%
6. Tampa International Airport
- Location: Tampa, FL
- Airport code: TPA
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 26.90%
5. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
- Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL
- Airport code: FLL
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 29.50%
4. Palm Beach International Airport
- Location: Palm Beach, FL
- Airport code: PBI
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 29.60%
3. Harry Reid International Airport
- Location: Las Vegas, NV
- Airport code: LAS
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 29.70%
2. Orlando International Airport
- Location: Orlando, FL
- Airport code: MCO
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 30.00%
1. Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport
- Location: San Juan, PR
- Airport code: SJU
- Percentage of flights delayed, Jan.-June, 2023: 33.90%
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