Four Florida airports ranked ‘worst’ for flight delays. Why is that and where are they?

Howard Cohen

This isn’t a great time for American airports. First came a holiday meltdown by Southwest Airlines. Then on Wednesday morning, the grounding of flights due to an FAA tech glitch.

Now comes a survey that slaps Florida airports over delays.

The survey says Florida airports make up four of the five worst in the country, according to “vacation experts” at Family Destinations Guide, a grouping of travel writers and editors that review hotels, resorts, destinations and attractions. Family Destinations used data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics to compile “the best and worst” airports for travel in the United States in 2022.

The figures compared the number of delays in every airport in the United States to determine its rankings.

Five worst airports

1. Orlando International Airport, 28.24% flights delayed.

2. Newark Liberty International Airport, in New Jersey, 26.51% flights delayed.

3. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, 26.1% flights delayed.

4. Tampa International Airport, 25.48% flights delayed.

5. Miami International Airport, 24.4% flights delayed.

Five best airports

1. Salt Lake City International Airport, 14.18% flights delayed.

2. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, 16.19% flights delayed.

3. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, 16.49% flights delayed.

4. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, 16.51% flights delayed.

5. Detroit Metropolitan Airport, 16.83% flights delayed.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 1,042,056 delayed flights in the U.S. in 2022.

American Airlines and every other carrier has been affected by the Wednesday morning system outage at the Federal Aviation Administration.
American Airlines and every other carrier has been affected by the Wednesday morning system outage at the Federal Aviation Administration.

Delay factors

But is it really the airport’s fault for flight delays? Are Florida’s airports more lax than those in Utah and Atlanta?

Maybe not, says Greg Chin, communications director for Miami International Airport.

“The factors that determine an airport’s on-time performance/delays are related to inclement weather or airline or Federal Aviation Administration operations, which are out of the airport’s control,” Chin told the Miami Herald in an email.

Some factors Chin cited include:

▪ Extended periods of inclement weather or lightning at the Miami airport, at the originating airport, or en route to MIA.

▪ FAA air traffic control and/or ground traffic problems at the originating airport or at MIA.

▪ FAA-mandated aircraft separation in the airspace on the way to/from MIA.

▪ Airline crew scheduling and crew time legality problems at MIA and/or the originating airport.

▪ Mechanical problems with aircraft departing from MIA or the originating city.

“It’s worth noting that Florida also has more lightning per square mile than any other U.S. state,” Chin added.

For instance, Four Corners, Florida, which is an unincorporated suburb about two miles west of Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge in Orlando, is the 2022 lightning capital of the United States, according to Vaisala’s Xweather Annual Lightning Report. Four Corners saw 1,229 lightning events per square mile in 2022, “the highest density of lightning of any community in the country,” Vaisala noted.

Florida also ranked No. 1 in the United States for total lightning density, with 285 lightning events per square mile, an increase of 27% compared with 2021, Vaisala reported.

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