These Are the Best Airports in North America, According to a New Passenger Survey

15.03.2024 - 14:43 / cntraveler.com / Luis Felipe De-Oliveira

Airports serve as gateways to discovering new destinations, and often play an outsized role in our first impressions of a place. But even within the same city, all airports are not created equal—let alone airports across the entire continent of North America.

In order to most accurately rank the world's best airports, the Airports Council International (ACI)—in conjunction with travel tech company Amadeus—conducted passenger surveys throughout the year to collect feedback. Around the globe, nearly 600,000 surveys were completed in 2023 before announcing the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards earlier this week.

One of the clearest takeaways from this year's awards is that many US airports are in the midst of undergoing major transformations—for better or for worse. New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, which was ranked one of the country's worst airports in 2018, rose past its long-mocked reputation to win top honors in the 25 to 40 million passengers category. And two Bay Area airports that were ranked among the best last year—San Francisco and San Jose Mineta—were noticeably absent from the most recent awards list.

But the list features some consistent favorites as well. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport was inducted into the ACI World Director General’s Roll of Excellence for receiving multiple back-to-back wins in the last decade. Also standing apart: Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and Grand Rapids Gerald R. Ford International Airport, which both won in all five categories.

What sets the winners apart? The best airports have embraced the digitalization of the airport experience with “applied technologies like self-service and biometrics to improve the experience for passengers across key airport touch points,” Rudy Daniello, Amadeus’s EVP of airport and airline operations, said in a statement. ACI's world director general Luis Felipe de Oliveira also noted that excellent customer service has allowed some airports to become not “just gateways, but memorable destinations in themselves.”

These are the best North American airports honored in this year’s ASQ awards, including the category winners for cleanliness, most dedicated staff, most enjoyable airport, and easiest airport journey.

The ASQ's overall “best airport” awards are categorized by the number of passengers the airports serve each year. All of the winners in this category represent the top 20% overall satisfaction score, based on passengers surveys conducted at the point of departure. Meanwhile, the winners of the cleanliness, most dedicated staff, most enjoyable airport, and easiest airport journey categories represent the top 5% of airports in the region.

Under 2 million passengers per year

Two small