The best and worst airports in North America for 2026, per J.D. Power

Airport terminals are as crowded as they have ever been, yet the people moving through them are happier than they were a year ago. The explanation is physical. After roughly a decade of terminal rebuilds, new concourses and redesigned checkpoints, the money is starting to show up in passenger scores.

The best and worst airports in North America for 2026 come from J.D. Power’s 2026 North America Airport Satisfaction Study, released Sept. 16. The study, now in its 21st year, drew on 24,710 surveys of travelers from the U.S. and Canada who flew between July 2025 and July 2026. It scores airports on a 1,000-point scale across seven areas. In order of importance, they are ease of getting through the airport, trust in the airport, terminal facilities, staff, the trip to the airport, food, beverage and retail, and the trip away from it.

J.D. Power sorts airports by size so a regional field is not judged against a global hub. Mega airports handle 33 million or more passengers a year. Large airports handle 10 million to 32.9 million. Medium airports handle 4.5 million to 9.9 million. Average satisfaction rose in every group this year — by 14 points for mega airports, 13 for large and 16 for medium.

The company ties the gains to construction. It says every top-ranked airport in the 2026 study has finished, or is close to finishing, a multiyear capital program costing more than $1 billion. The bottom of the table tells the reverse story. Several of the lowest-scoring airports are mid-rebuild or still waiting for theirs to start.

One change shapes this year’s results. Canadian travelers were surveyed, but Canadian airports such as Toronto Pearson were left out of the 2026 rankings because J.D. Power changed its sampling method in Canada, a company spokesperson told Business Insider. Every airport below is in the U.S.

The slides that follow cover the top three and bottom three airports in each size category, 18 airports in all, with their scores and the context behind them.

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Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the best mega airport in North America for 2026, according to J.D. Power. MSP scored 684 out of 1,000 and ranked No. 1 among the busiest airports for a third consecutive year.

That score put MSP 21 points ahead of the runner-up, Detroit, and far above the mega-airport average of 617. It is also the fourth time in five years that the Twin Cities airport has led the category. Average satisfaction across mega airports climbed 14 points this year, so MSP held its lead while the rest of the field improved.

The airport sits between Minneapolis and St. Paul and is run by the Metropolitan Airports Commission, a public agency that also oversees several smaller reliever airports around the metro area. It has two passenger terminals. Terminal 1 is the larger and serves Delta Air Lines, which runs one of its main hubs there, along with most other carriers. Terminal 2 is the base for Sun Country Airlines, the Minnesota-based low-cost carrier, and a handful of other airlines.

Transit is one reason passengers rate the trip to and from MSP well. The Metro Blue Line light rail stops at both terminals. It connects travelers to downtown Minneapolis in one direction and to the Mall of America in Bloomington in the other. Riding the train between the two terminals is free.

Inside, MSP has leaned on Minnesota restaurants and shops alongside national brands. J.D. Power’s study found that passengers respond well to that kind of mix of local and national food concepts. The airport also runs a public art program across its concourses.

Construction has not stopped at the top. MSP is expanding Concourse G in Terminal 1, adding gates as Delta grows its schedule. More than 36 million passengers used the airport in 2025, keeping it comfortably inside J.D. Power’s mega tier, which starts at 33 million a year.

Three straight first-place finishes suggest MSP’s results reflect steady day-to-day operations rather than a one-time boost from a single new building. For Delta’s network, it means two of the airline’s Midwest hubs, Minneapolis and Detroit, hold the top two spots in the mega rankings.

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Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport ranks No. 2 among mega airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 663. DTW held the same position in 2025, when it scored 649, so its 14-point gain matched the improvement across the whole mega segment.

The airport is in Romulus, Michigan, about 20 miles southwest of downtown Detroit. The Wayne County Airport Authority runs it. DTW operates two terminals. The McNamara Terminal serves Delta Air Lines and its SkyTeam partners, while the Evans Terminal, formerly known as the North Terminal, handles most other airlines.

The McNamara Terminal is the building travelers tend to remember. Its main hall, Concourse A, runs for about a mile. An elevated Express Tram travels along its length so connecting passengers can get between far-apart gates quickly. A choreographed water fountain sits near the center of the concourse. A pedestrian tunnel linking Concourse A with Concourses B and C is known for its synchronized light-and-music installation, one of the most photographed spaces in any U.S. airport.

Because Detroit is a major connecting hub, a large share of its passengers never leave the secure area. That makes ease of travel through the airport, the factor J.D. Power weights most heavily, especially relevant here. Wide concourses, clear sightlines and the tram reduce the friction of tight connections.

DTW also serves as one of Delta’s main gateways for flights across the Atlantic and the Pacific. That international role means the airport handles customs and immigration for large numbers of arriving passengers, another part of the experience that feeds into the arrival scores J.D. Power collects.

Detroit’s consistent second-place finishes put it ahead of mega airports in much larger metro areas. In the 2026 study it outscored San Francisco International, which ranked No. 6 with 630, and New York’s John F. Kennedy International, which ranked No. 8 with 626.

Together with Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Detroit gives the Upper Midwest the two most satisfying mega airports on the continent this year. Both are Delta hubs, and both have ranked in the top two for consecutive years.

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Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport ranks No. 3 among mega airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 642. It also finished third in 2025, when it scored 634, so the eight-point gain kept Phoenix in the same spot.

Sky Harbor finished just ahead of New York’s LaGuardia Airport, which scored 638 at No. 4 after its multibillion-dollar rebuild. Harry Reid International in Las Vegas followed at No. 5 with 634.

The airport sits about three miles east of downtown Phoenix, an unusually short distance for an airport of its size. The city of Phoenix owns and operates it, and the airport has long marketed itself around friendly service. It has two active passenger terminals, Terminal 3 and Terminal 4. There is no Terminal 1, which closed decades ago, and Terminal 2 closed in 2020.

Terminal 4 is the larger building. It serves American Airlines, which runs a hub at PHX, and Southwest Airlines, the airport’s other dominant carrier. In 2022 the airport opened an eighth concourse at Terminal 4 to add gates and relieve crowding. Terminal 3 went through a multiyear modernization that wrapped up around 2020.

The PHX Sky Train ties the campus together. The free automated train connects the terminals with parking and with the Valley Metro light rail station at 44th Street, so travelers can reach downtown Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa without a car. That kind of link counts toward the trip-to-airport and trip-from-airport dimensions in J.D. Power’s study.

Growth is the backdrop for all of it. The Phoenix metro area is one of the fastest-growing in the U.S., and Sky Harbor regularly ranks among the country’s busiest airports by passenger count. Keeping security lines and curbside traffic manageable as demand rises is the central challenge, and it maps directly onto ease of travel, the most heavily weighted factor in the study.

Two straight third-place finishes put the Sun Belt hub ahead of mega airports with far more international traffic. In 2026, Miami International ranked No. 7 with 628 and Boston Logan International ranked No. 9 with 622.

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Tampa International Airport is the top-ranked large airport in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 715. That was the highest score of any airport in any size category this year.

TPA finished seven points ahead of Portland International, the No. 2 large airport, and three points ahead of Charleston International, the best medium airport. Large airports serve between 10 million and 32.9 million passengers a year, which puts Tampa in the same bracket as Kansas City, Raleigh-Durham and Nashville. Those three placed No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 in the segment.

Tampa’s layout is why it comes up in discussions of airport design. Its current terminal opened in 1971 using a landside-airside model. Passengers check in at the main terminal, then ride a short automated shuttle to one of several satellite airsides where the gates are. Walking distances stay short, and security screening happens at each airside rather than at one central checkpoint, which spreads out the lines. Other airports later adopted versions of the same concept.

The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority runs TPA. Over the past decade it has added SkyConnect, an automated train that links the main terminal with a consolidated rental car center and economy parking. It has also expanded the main terminal’s curbsides and has been building a new airside to add gates. That record of construction fits the pattern J.D. Power describes, in which the top-ranked airports are those finishing large capital programs.

Inside the terminal, TPA mixes Tampa Bay restaurants and shops with national chains, and it has invested in public art across its airsides.

Tampa’s result in J.D. Power’s study lines up with other recognition. In October, USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards named it the best large airport for a third year, according to the airport.

For travelers bound for Florida’s Gulf Coast, the ranking means the region’s main airport rates above every other large airport in the study. That group includes Southwest Florida International in Fort Myers, which ranked No. 8 among large airports with 680, and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, which ranked No. 7 with 682.

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Portland International Airport ranks No. 2 among large airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 708. The result follows the opening of a rebuilt main terminal in 2024.

PDX finished seven points behind Tampa and 10 points ahead of Dallas Love Field, which placed third. The Port of Portland, a public agency, owns and operates the airport.

The new terminal core is defined by its roof. It is a mass-timber structure built from wood sourced in the Pacific Northwest and covering roughly nine acres. Skylights bring daylight into the hall, and the design includes living trees and other plantings set into the floor. The Port pitched the project as a way to bring the feel of an Oregon forest indoors. The main terminal opened in August 2024, and work on surrounding concourses continued afterward.

Some of PDX’s appeal predates the rebuild. The airport requires its restaurants and shops to use street pricing, meaning they cannot charge more inside the terminal than at their locations elsewhere in the region. That policy speaks to the food, beverage and retail dimension of J.D. Power’s survey, where price is a common complaint at other airports. The airport’s old teal geometric carpet, replaced in 2015, became a local symbol with its own merchandise.

Getting to PDX is also straightforward. TriMet’s MAX Red Line light rail runs directly to the terminal from downtown Portland, with no transfer needed. Alaska Airlines is the airport’s largest carrier, and the airport serves as a gateway for much of Oregon and southwest Washington state.

The airport’s ranking reflects the pattern J.D. Power highlighted across the study. Airports that have recently completed major capital programs dominate the top of each category, and the new PDX terminal is among the most visible examples of that wave of construction in the western U.S.

For a city of Portland’s size, the result places its airport above larger and busier facilities in the same segment. In J.D. Power’s 2026 rankings, PDX outscored every other West Coast airport in the large category, including John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, at No. 9 with 677 and Sacramento International at No. 10 with 672.

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Dallas Love Field ranks No. 3 among large airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 698. The compact airport near downtown Dallas finished 10 points behind Portland and six points ahead of Kansas City International, which placed fourth.

Love Field sits about six miles northwest of downtown Dallas and is owned by the city. It is best known as the home base of Southwest Airlines, whose headquarters is next to the airfield. Southwest operates the large majority of flights there, and a few other airlines run smaller operations.

The airport’s size is part of its appeal. Love Field is capped at 20 gates under a 2006 agreement among the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Southwest and American Airlines. That limit keeps the terminal small, and walking distances from the curb to the farthest gate are short compared with larger hubs.

History explains the cap. For decades, the federal Wright Amendment, passed in 1979, restricted most long-haul flights out of Love Field to protect the newer Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The 2006 deal set a schedule to phase out those limits, and the last of them expired in 2014. That same year, Love Field finished a modernization program that rebuilt its terminal, concourse and parking.

The result is an airport that handles more than 10 million passengers a year, enough to place it in J.D. Power’s large category, while feeling closer in scale to a medium airport. That combination tends to help on ease of travel, the factor J.D. Power weights most heavily.

Transit options are limited but present. Dallas Area Rapid Transit runs a shuttle bus between the terminal and the nearest light rail station, connecting travelers to downtown and other parts of the region.

Dallas is one of the few U.S. metro areas with two airports in J.D. Power’s study. The much larger Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is a mega airport. Love Field’s third-place finish among large airports shows that travelers in North Texas who can fly Southwest have a high-scoring alternative close to the city center.

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Charleston International Airport is the top-ranked medium airport in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 712. Only one airport in the entire study scored higher: Tampa International, at 715.

CHS finished seven points ahead of Ontario International in Southern California, which ranked second, and 17 points ahead of Indianapolis International, the longtime category leader that fell to third. Medium airports serve between 4.5 million and 9.9 million passengers a year, and average satisfaction in the group rose 16 points this year, the largest gain of the three segments.

The airport is in North Charleston, South Carolina, about 12 miles from the city’s historic downtown. The Charleston County Aviation Authority runs the passenger terminal. CHS shares its runways with Joint Base Charleston, an Air Force installation that is home to a fleet of military cargo jets, so the airfield functions as a joint civil-military facility.

It is also an aerospace manufacturing site. Boeing $BA assembles 787 Dreamliners at a plant next to the airport, and since 2021 that factory has been the only place the company builds the widebody jet.

Passenger traffic at Charleston has grown along with the region’s population and tourism industry. The city regularly appears on travel-magazine lists of top U.S. destinations, which brings a steady stream of leisure travelers. To keep up, the airport completed a major terminal overhaul in the mid-2010s that renovated and expanded the building, and it has continued to add space since then.

The terminal’s design and concessions lean on the Lowcountry. Local food and retail are part of the mix, which fits J.D. Power’s finding that passengers respond well to a balance of regional and national brands.

For a medium airport, CHS offers a relatively wide set of nonstop destinations, served by major carriers and low-cost airlines. That gives travelers in coastal South Carolina access to much of the eastern U.S. without connecting through a larger hub.

Charleston’s first-place finish also means the Southeast holds the top spot in two of the three categories this year, with Tampa leading the large airports and Charleston leading the medium ones.

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Ontario International Airport ranks No. 2 among medium airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 705. The Southern California airport finished seven points behind Charleston and 10 points ahead of Indianapolis.

ONT is in Ontario, California, in San Bernardino County, roughly 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It serves the Inland Empire, one of the fastest-growing regions in California, and works as an alternative to the much busier Los Angeles International Airport for travelers who live east of the city.

The airport’s ownership changed a decade ago. Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that runs LAX, operated Ontario for years. After a long dispute over the airport’s declining traffic, control passed to the local Ontario International Airport Authority in 2016. Since the handover, the authority has worked to win back airlines and add routes, and passenger numbers have grown.

ONT has two passenger terminals, Terminal 2 and Terminal 4, both relatively modern and compact. That layout means short walks from the curb to the gate, which helps on ease of travel, the factor J.D. Power weights most heavily. Southwest Airlines is the largest passenger carrier.

Ontario is also a major freight airport. UPS and FedEx $FDX both run large cargo operations there, reflecting the Inland Empire’s role as a warehousing and logistics hub for goods arriving through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Cargo volume at ONT is high for an airport of its passenger size.

For travelers, Ontario’s appeal often comes down to avoiding traffic. Driving to LAX from the Inland Empire can take well over an hour, while ONT is close to major freeways serving Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Southern California placed two airports among the top five medium airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 rankings. Along with Ontario, Hollywood Burbank Airport ranked No. 5 with 688. Both serve as smaller alternatives to LAX, and both scored well above most of the region’s larger airports.

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Indianapolis International Airport ranks No. 3 among medium airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 695. IND had led the medium category for the previous four years, so this year’s finish marks a drop from first place even though its score remains high.

Indianapolis trailed Charleston by 17 points and Ontario by 10. It finished one point ahead of Milwaukee Mitchell International, which ranked fourth with 694. The gap between second and fourth in the medium segment is just 11 points, a sign of how tightly packed the top of the category is.

IND sits about seven miles southwest of downtown Indianapolis and is run by the Indianapolis Airport Authority. Its current passenger terminal, the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal, opened in 2008 between the airport’s two parallel runways. It was one of the first major U.S. airport terminals designed and built entirely after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, so security screening was planned into the layout rather than added later.

The terminal is built around a central civic plaza with natural light, shops and restaurants. Two concourses branch from it, and the distances from security to the farthest gates are short compared with larger hubs. The airport also displays a large collection of public art.

Indianapolis is a major cargo center. FedEx $FDX operates one of its largest hubs in the world at IND, making the airport far busier for freight than its passenger volume would suggest.

The airport has a long record of strong passenger scores. It has won multiple awards from Airports Council International’s customer-experience program, and its four-year run at the top of J.D. Power’s medium category was one of the longest streaks in the study.

IND’s slide to third does not reflect a collapse in satisfaction. Instead, airports such as Charleston and Ontario climbed past it in a year when the medium segment’s average rose 16 points. For travelers, Indianapolis remains one of the highest-rated airports in the U.S. regardless of size.

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Chicago O’Hare International Airport ties for last place among mega airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 585. It shares the bottom spot with Newark Liberty International Airport.

O’Hare’s score was nearly flat from 2025, when it registered 586. That stands out in a year when the mega-airport average rose 14 points to 617. The airport now sits 99 points behind first-place Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

Size is part of the challenge. O’Hare handled 84.8 million passengers in 2025, according to Business Insider. It is a hub for both United Airlines and American Airlines, which means huge numbers of travelers connecting between flights, often across terminals. J.D. Power’s managing director of travel, hospitality and retail, Michael Taylor, said O’Hare and Newark both have largely outdated facilities and are on the verge of major construction, NJ.com reported.

That construction is the city’s O’Hare 21 program, a multibillion-dollar plan to remake the airport. Its centerpiece is the O’Hare Global Terminal, which will replace Terminal 2, a building that dates to the early 1960s. The plan also includes new satellite concourses and an expansion of Terminal 5, the airport’s international terminal. The Chicago Department of Aviation runs O’Hare.

Until that work is finished, passengers deal with the airport as it is. O’Hare’s terminals are linked by an automated people mover called the Airport Transit System, which also serves a consolidated rental car and parking facility. The CTA Blue Line runs directly into the airport, providing a rail link to downtown Chicago that runs around the clock.

O’Hare’s weather adds another layer. Winter storms and summer thunderstorms in the Midwest regularly cause delays and cancellations, which can stretch layovers and fill gate areas.

If the pattern J.D. Power describes holds, O’Hare’s scores could rise as the O’Hare 21 projects open. The study found that the top-ranked airports have completed or nearly completed their capital programs. For now, O’Hare sits on the other side of that cycle.

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Newark Liberty International Airport ties for last place among mega airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 585. It shares the bottom spot with Chicago O’Hare.

The tie is a small step up for Newark. In 2025 the New Jersey airport scored 565 and finished last on its own, the fourth straight year it occupied the bottom of the mega rankings. Its 20-point gain in 2026 was larger than the 14-point average increase across the segment.

EWR is in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, about 15 miles southwest of Midtown Manhattan. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates it, along with John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia. United Airlines runs one of its largest hubs there.

The airport’s biggest recent upgrade is the new Terminal A, which opened in January 2023 and replaced a building from the 1970s. Terminals B and C are older. Terminal C is United’s main base. The Port Authority is also building a replacement for the AirTrain Newark monorail, which links the terminals with parking and a train station on the Northeast Corridor.

Newark had a hard 2025. In late April, an outage of radar and radio links used by the air traffic controllers handling Newark’s flights caused widespread delays and cancellations. A runway closure for reconstruction that spring added to the disruption. The Federal Aviation Administration responded by temporarily capping the number of hourly flights at the airport.

Those problems fall partly outside the airport’s control, since air traffic control is run by the FAA, not the Port Authority. But delays and crowded gate areas still shape how passengers experience the terminals, and the study’s survey period began in July 2025, not long after the worst of the disruption.

LaGuardia offers a direct comparison. The other Port Authority airport that went through a full rebuild ranked No. 4 among mega airports with 638, 53 points ahead of Newark. That gap reflects the study’s central finding: airports that finish major construction tend to see their scores rise.

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Denver International Airport ranks No. 18 among mega airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 602. That places it third from the bottom, ahead of only O’Hare and Newark, which tied for last.

Denver did improve. Its score rose six points from 2025, according to Axios. That gain was smaller than the 14-point average increase across the mega segment, so DEN lost ground relative to its peers.

Construction is a large part of the story. The city-owned airport is in the middle of its Great Hall Project, a multiyear overhaul of the main Jeppesen Terminal that is reorganizing space, including security screening areas. Axios reported that the work will continue into 2027. Ongoing construction can mean temporary walls, shifting checkpoints and crowded halls, all of which affect ease of travel, the factor J.D. Power weights most heavily.

DEN has also grown its capacity in other ways. A gate expansion program completed in the early 2020s added 39 gates across its three concourses, giving airlines room to add flights.

The airport’s scale is unusual. Covering about 53 square miles, it is the largest airport in the U.S. by land area. It is about 25 miles northeast of downtown Denver, and the RTD A Line commuter rail connects the terminal to Union Station downtown. The terminal’s peaked white fabric roof, designed to recall the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, has become one of the most recognizable pieces of airport architecture in the U.S.

DEN is a hub for United Airlines and a major base for Southwest Airlines, and it is the home airport of Denver-based Frontier Airlines. That mix makes it one of the busiest airports in the U.S. by passenger count.

If J.D. Power’s pattern holds, Denver’s score could climb once the Great Hall Project wraps up. The study found that all of its top-ranked airports had completed, or were close to completing, large capital programs. Denver is still in the middle of that process, and its 2026 ranking reflects it.

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Philadelphia International Airport ranks last among large airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 596. It is the only large airport that scored below 600.

PHL finished eight points behind Honolulu, the second-lowest large airport, and 119 points behind first-place Tampa. Its score is also lower than that of Denver, a much bigger and busier mega airport.

The airport is in southwest Philadelphia, with part of its land extending into Delaware County, and it sits about seven miles from Center City. The city’s Department of Aviation runs it. American Airlines operates a hub at PHL, its main gateway in the Northeast for flights to Europe.

PHL’s terminal complex is spread across a series of lettered terminals, A through F, arranged in a long line along the airfield. Connecting between the far ends can involve long walks, and many of the buildings date back decades.

Ground access is one of PHL’s strengths. SEPTA’s Airport Line regional rail stops at the terminals and runs directly to Center City and on to other parts of the region. The airport is also close to Interstate 95 and the city’s sports complex.

Like Newark and O’Hare, Philadelphia is an older hub working to modernize. Upgrades have been under way across several terminals, but the airport has not completed the kind of large, transformative rebuild that J.D. Power links to the top of its rankings.

Philadelphia’s last-place finish contrasts with the strong showing of other large airports in the eastern U.S. In the same segment, Raleigh-Durham International ranked No. 5 with 685, and Nashville International ranked No. 6 with 683.

For American’s customers who connect through Philadelphia, the ranking signals where the airport’s challenges lie. Ease of travel and terminal facilities carry the most weight in J.D. Power’s scoring, and those are the areas where older, linear terminal layouts struggle most.

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Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, listed in J.D. Power’s study as Honolulu International Airport, ranks second to last among large airports in 2026, with a score of 604. It finished eight points above Philadelphia and one point below St. Louis.

The airport was renamed in 2017 for Daniel K. Inouye, the longtime U.S. senator from Hawaii. It is run by the Hawaii Department of Transportation’s Airports Division, rather than by a city or an independent authority, and it sits about five miles west of downtown Honolulu on Oahu.

HNL is the main gateway to Hawaii. It handles flights from the U.S. mainland, from Asia and the Pacific, and between the islands. Hawaiian Airlines, now part of Alaska Air Group, runs its hub there. A large share of passengers are tourists, many of whom are visiting for the first time and unfamiliar with the layout.

The terminal reflects its era and its climate. Much of the complex dates to the mid-20th century and uses open-air walkways rather than fully enclosed halls. Visitors pass Chinese, Japanese and Hawaiian cultural gardens along the way. The open design suits Hawaii’s weather, but long distances between gates and older facilities can wear on travelers. The Wiki Wiki shuttle buses help move passengers between terminals.

The state has been working to modernize the airport. A new concourse, the Mauka Concourse, opened in the early 2020s, adding gates for interisland flights, and other renovation projects have followed. The airport has not yet finished the kind of comprehensive overhaul that J.D. Power links to top scores.

Arrival is a large part of the experience at a tourist gateway. Long waits at baggage claim, rental car counters and curbside pickup can shape a visitor’s first impression of the islands, and J.D. Power’s survey includes the trip away from the airport as one of its seven scoring areas.

For travelers bound for Hawaii, HNL’s ranking is a reminder that the islands’ main airport trails most of the large airports on the mainland in passenger satisfaction.

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St. Louis Lambert International Airport ranks third from the bottom among large airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 605. It finished one point ahead of Honolulu and nine points ahead of Philadelphia.

The airport is about 14 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis and is owned by the city. Its history explains much of its current shape. Lambert was once a major hub for TWA, which built up a large network of connecting flights there. American Airlines acquired TWA in 2001 and cut the St. Louis hub sharply within a few years, leaving the airport with far more space than its traffic required.

Today Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at STL. Most of its flights operate from Terminal 2, while Terminal 1 serves most other airlines.

Terminal 1 contains one of the most significant pieces of airport architecture in the U.S. Its main hall, completed in 1956, was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect later known for New York’s original World Trade Center. Its series of intersecting concrete vaults influenced airport terminal design across the country. The building is admired by architects but was designed for a much earlier era of air travel.

Splitting airlines across two separate terminals, each with its own parking, curbside and checkpoints, adds complexity for travelers who are unsure which building they need. Clear wayfinding matters here, and J.D. Power’s study linked clear signage with higher passenger satisfaction.

City and airport officials have been planning to consolidate operations into a single new terminal, a project that would replace the current two-terminal layout. That puts St. Louis among the airports at the start of the construction cycle rather than at the end of it.

Transit is one bright spot. The MetroLink light rail Red Line stops at both terminals and runs to downtown St. Louis and across the Mississippi River into Illinois.

If St. Louis follows the pattern J.D. Power describes, a new consolidated terminal could raise its scores. For now, it sits near the bottom of a segment where airports such as Kansas City, with its new single terminal, placed near the top.

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Cleveland Hopkins International Airport ranks last among medium airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, with a score of 597. It finished 115 points behind first-place Charleston, a wider spread than the 99 points separating the top and bottom of the mega category.

CLE’s score also trails airports in the other two segments. It was lower than every large airport except Philadelphia and lower than every mega airport except O’Hare and Newark.

The airport is about 10 miles southwest of downtown Cleveland and is owned by the city. It was a hub for Continental Airlines and then United Airlines after the two merged. United closed the Cleveland hub in 2014, cutting a large share of the airport’s flights. Traffic has since recovered with growth from other carriers, but the terminal was built for a hub operation that no longer exists.

Much of the terminal is aging, and the city has developed a long-range plan to modernize it. As at St. Louis and O’Hare, Cleveland is at the start of its construction cycle. J.D. Power’s finding that top-scoring airports have recently finished major projects suggests CLE’s ranking reflects the work it has not yet done.

The airport has one historic distinction. In 1968 it became the first airport in North America connected directly to its city by rapid transit, when the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Red Line was extended to a station inside the terminal. The train still runs between the airport and downtown.

Medium airports serve between 4.5 million and 9.9 million passengers a year. In that group, satisfaction rose by an average of 16 points in 2026, the largest increase of the three categories. That rising average left Cleveland further behind its peers.

Other Ohio airports finished well above it. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, which sits across the state line in Kentucky, ranked No. 7 among medium airports with 675, and John Glenn Columbus International ranked No. 10 with 666.

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Omaha’s Eppley Airfield ranks among the bottom three medium airports in J.D. Power’s 2026 study, finishing second from the bottom in the segment. Only Cleveland Hopkins International Airport scored lower.

The airport is about four miles northeast of downtown Omaha, Nebraska, close to the Missouri River. It is named for Eugene C. Eppley, a hotel owner whose foundation helped fund the airport’s development. The Omaha Airport Authority runs it.

Eppley sits next to an unusual piece of geography. The neighboring town of Carter Lake, Iowa, lies on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River, cut off from the rest of Iowa after the river shifted course in the 19th century. Part of the airport’s surroundings border the Iowa town.

The airport serves the Omaha metro area and much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. It sees seasonal spikes in traffic, including in June, when the NCAA Men’s College World Series brings teams and fans from around the U.S. to Omaha.

OMA is in the middle of a terminal modernization program, called Build OMA, that is expanding and reworking the passenger terminal. Construction of that kind can disrupt travel through the airport while it is under way, affecting checkpoints, gate areas and concessions. It also places Omaha among the airports that J.D. Power’s findings suggest could improve once work is finished.

The airport’s position near the bottom reflects how competitive the medium segment has become. Average satisfaction among medium airports rose 16 points in 2026, more than in either of the other categories, which raised the bar for every airport in the group.

Travelers $TRV in the region have nearby comparisons. Kansas City International, which opened a new single terminal in 2023, ranked No. 4 among large airports with 692. Milwaukee Mitchell International, another Midwestern medium airport, ranked No. 4 in Eppley’s own category with 694.

For Omaha, the J.D. Power ranking amounts to a baseline. The airport’s renovations are designed to address terminal facilities and ease of travel, the factors that carry the most weight in the study’s scoring.