Air travel is supposed to be a fun and enjoyable process.
Whether you’re traveling for business or for pleasure, it’s supposed to be an experience that you remember forever — and for all the right reasons, not the wrong ones.
Yet, traveling can be very stressful. And, depending on where you’re flying from or to, that stress can be much more pronounced.
Airports around the U.S. have become an increasingly large agitation source for travelers in recent years, due to overcrowding and many delays in flights. Ever since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems as if the problem is only getting worse instead of getting better.
The levels of stress flyers experience aren’t the same at each airport. Some are really great at providing an excellent experience for travelers, while others are way behind — to say the least.
Recently, the 2024 USA Stressful Airport Index was released by StressFreecarRental.com. It ranks the most stressful U.S. airports to fly out of or into.
And the “winner” is … Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
ORD, which in 2022 served 33.1 million total passengers to the 249 destinations it serves, ranked first on the list for a number of reasons. Parking is very expensive there — $281 per week — and it’s quite far from the center of the city — it takes about an hour by car and 45 minutes by train to reach.
Next up is John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. It’s not easy at all to access, being in Queens, quite a far ride from downtown Manhattan. Parking is also expensive; the experience with customs, immigration and TSA is poor; and the Wi-Fi isn’t very good, either.
The car rental platform determined these rankings by analyzing five different factors that induce stress — 2022 passenger numbers, how much it costs to park there for a week, how many destinations the airport serves, ratings from passengers provided by Flightradar24, as well as how far the airport is from the center of the city.
It ranked the 15 most popular domestic airports according to these rankings.
In a statement that accompanied the release of the rankings, the company’s CEO John Charnock said:
“A stressful experience at the airport could make or break your vacation, so we’ve crunched the data to find which destinations travelers should steer clear of if they want a peaceful airport experience.”
Rounding out the top 10 in the rankings are Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Denver International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Miami International Airport, Orlando International Airport in Florida, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
The rest of the list, in order from 11 to 15, are Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Charlotte Douglas international Airport in North Carolina, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, San Francisco International Airport and Phoenix International Airport.
