Best and Worst Airports for Holiday Flight Delays, Cancellations

Holiday air travel will once again be crowded this year but it doesn't have to be stressful. The good folks at CompareCards recently analyzed a decade of U.S. Department of Transportation holiday flight data between 2009 and 2018 at the 50 busiest airports in the U.S. to determine which fare the best and worst when it comes to getting travelers to their destination on time. Holiday travel was defined as flights departing between December 20 and December 31 with delays referring to any flight arriving 15 minutes or more late to its desitnation or canceled outright.

Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport is the best airport in the U.S. when it comes to smooth holiday travel in late December, boasting a remarkable on-time percentage of 86.2 and a cancellation rate of only 0.4 percent.

Elsewhere in Hawaii, Kahului Airport on the island of Maui is also among the best you can fly out of this holiday season. According to CompareCards' research, fewer than 15 percent of flights are delayed and only 0.5 percent are canceled. Like Honolulu, the worst day to fly out of Kahului is December 21.

Portland International Airport fares the best for holiday headaches in the mainland U.S. with 78.4 percent of departing flights reaching their destination on time and fewer than 1 percent (0.7 percent) being canceled.

Like Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest is one of the best places to fly from this holiday season when it comes to reliability. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport ranks fourth-best for flight delays with an on-time percentage of 78.3 percent and ties for second-best in terms of cancellations with a rate of just 0.5 percent.

Believe it or not, New York's LaGuardia Airport rounds out the top five best airports for holiday travel, with more than 77 percent of flights reaching their destination on time. Nonetheless, LaGuardia's 3.4 percent cancellation rate is sixth-worst, barely edging out nearby John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Chicago Midway International Airport earns the unwelcome distinction of being the nation's worst airport for end-of-year travel as only 62.7 percent of departing flights were found to be on time. If there's a bright spot though, it's that Midway's 2.6 percent cancellation rate is only eighth-worst among the 50 airports analyzed.

Nearby, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport doesn't fare much better, ranking second-worst for December holiday flight delays (64.9 percent of flights on time) and second-worst for cancellations (3.6 percent of flights canceled). It turns out that December 22 is the worst travel day for both Chicago airports.

With a 10-year average December holiday cancellation rate of 4 percent, Newark-Liberty International Airport is the worst airport in the country when it comes to holiday flight cancellations. What's more, just over 65 percent of departing flights from the New Jersey airport reach their destination on time.

Nearly one-third (32.7 percent) of holiday flights departing Denver International Airport are delayed and almost 2 percent are canceled, making it one of the poorest-performing in the country during the busy end-of-year travel period. Travelers flying out of the Mile High City this holiday season should look to avoid December 26, which is the airport's worst travel day, according to CompareCards.

Houston's William P. Hobby Airport ties Denver for fourth-worst for holiday flight delays with an on-time percentage of just 65.6. However, Hobby does boast a cancellation rate of only 1.3 percent, which is 19th-best among the 50 airports examined.