Which US airport has the worst delays?
Dallas Love Field for leaving late: only 68.3% of its departures pushed back on time in the twelve months to July 2026, then Fort Lauderdale (70.0%), Dallas/Fort Worth (71.1%), Chicago Midway (71.8%) and Nashville (72.1%). San Francisco is the worst place to arrive, 68.0% on time, because of fog and a single-runway arrival flow. Salt Lake City is the best large airport at both ends, 84.7% of departures and 85.0% of arrivals on time, and Chicago O’Hare is the busiest in the country at 986 departures a day.
- 986scheduled departures a day from Chicago O’Hare, the busiest airport, ahead of Denver’s 875
- 68.3%of departures left on time at Dallas Love Field, the worst of any airport with 100 or more a day
- 28 minaverage taxi-out at JFK and O’Hare, the longest wait between pushback and take-off
- −62%St. Louis’s departures since 2000, the biggest fall of any former hub; Denver’s rose 131%
Based on 7,043,858 scheduled domestic departures from 359 US airports between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2026, and the same airports’ departures in calendar 2000 and 2025, as reported to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Explore the live data.
Which airports are the busiest?
Chicago O’Hare, with 986 scheduled departures a day, then Denver (875), Atlanta (865) and Dallas/Fort Worth (856). Those four are a tier of their own; Phoenix is fifth at 541, then Los Angeles (521), Charlotte (497), Las Vegas (474), Seattle (452) and Orlando (440). Dallas/Fort Worth serves the most places, 176 nonstop destinations on an average day, with Denver (172) and O’Hare (160) behind it.
| Airport | Departures a day | Destinations | Airlines | Departed on time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago O’Hare (ORD) | 986 | 160 | 11.4 | 73.4% |
| Denver (DEN) | 875 | 172 | 9.0 | 76.2% |
| Atlanta (ATL) | 865 | 130 | 11.8 | 78.4% |
| Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) | 856 | 176 | 9.8 | 71.1% |
| Phoenix (PHX) | 541 | 101 | 10.3 | 76.7% |
| Los Angeles (LAX) | 521 | 80 | 9.4 | 79.8% |
| Charlotte (CLT) | 497 | 114 | 9.8 | 75.6% |
| Las Vegas (LAS) | 474 | 94 | 10.1 | 74.4% |
| Seattle (SEA) | 452 | 78 | 8.8 | 78.9% |
| Orlando (MCO) | 440 | 73 | 8.7 | 73.6% |
| San Francisco (SFO) | 404 | 71 | 8.4 | 75.9% |
| Boston (BOS) | 393 | 63 | 10.6 | 76.5% |
The Punctuality tab sizes every airport by departures and colours it by whichever measure you choose, with a sidebar of that airport’s numbers when you click a dot; the Rankings tab is the same table for all 359 airports, sortable, with a size filter so a small airport’s 90% on-time rate is not compared with O’Hare’s.
Which large airport has the worst departure delays, and which the best?
Among airports with at least 100 departures a day, Dallas Love Field is worst: 68.3% of departures left on time and the average departure was 16.8 minutes late. Fort Lauderdale (70.0%), Dallas/Fort Worth (71.1%), Midway (71.8%) and Nashville (72.1%) follow; five of the bottom seven are Southwest strongholds. Salt Lake City is best at 84.7%, then Honolulu (84.3%), Washington Dulles (83.8%), Portland (83.3%) and Pittsburgh (82.3%).
| Airport | Departures | Departed on time | Arrived on time | Avg departure delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas Love Field (DAL) | 70,439 | 68.3% | 77.2% | 16.8 min |
| Fort Lauderdale (FLL) | 90,381 | 70.0% | 72.0% | 19.2 min |
| Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) | 312,515 | 71.1% | 77.5% | 19.7 min |
| Chicago Midway (MDW) | 73,744 | 71.8% | 77.3% | 14.7 min |
| Nashville (BNA) | 109,436 | 72.1% | 76.5% | 15.4 min |
| Pittsburgh (PIT) | 42,857 | 82.3% | 77.2% | 10.3 min |
| Portland (PDX) | 63,282 | 83.3% | 81.1% | 8.0 min |
| Washington Dulles (IAD) | 58,031 | 83.8% | 83.2% | 11.1 min |
| Honolulu (HNL) | 58,088 | 84.3% | 80.6% | 7.9 min |
| Salt Lake City (SLC) | 117,896 | 84.7% | 85.0% | 6.9 min |
Arrivals tell a different story at the coasts: San Francisco departs 75.9% on time but lands only 68.0% on time, Washington National 73.4% against 71.6%, LaGuardia 76.0% against 72.7%. Open any airport in the Destinations tab for its months, years, airlines and destinations.
Where do you sit on the taxiway longest?
New York and Chicago. The average flight spends 28.0 minutes between pushback and take-off at both JFK and O’Hare, 26.0 at LaGuardia and 24.7 at Newark, against an industry average of 18.8. O’Hare is also the slowest airport to reach the gate after landing, 20.7 minutes, nearly twice Seattle’s 12.5 in second place. Dallas Love Field (13.5), Houston Hobby (13.2) and San Antonio (13.2) are the quickest big airports off the ground.
| Airport | Taxi out | Taxi in |
|---|---|---|
| New York JFK (JFK) | 28.0 | 11.0 |
| Chicago O’Hare (ORD) | 28.0 | 20.7 |
| New York LaGuardia (LGA) | 26.0 | 8.5 |
| Newark (EWR) | 24.7 | 10.0 |
| San Francisco (SFO) | 22.5 | 8.6 |
| Washington National (DCA) | 22.4 | 7.9 |
| Seattle (SEA) | 21.9 | 12.5 |
| Washington Dulles (IAD) | 21.7 | 7.8 |
| Philadelphia (PHL) | 21.7 | 8.1 |
| Miami (MIA) | 21.5 | 9.8 |
| Houston Hobby (HOU) | 13.2 | 5.6 |
| Dallas Love Field (DAL) | 13.5 | 6.2 |
Taxi times are reported from 1995 and have grown everywhere: the national average taxi-out was 13.7 minutes in 1995 and 18.8 in 2026. The report’s Destinations tab plots an airport’s taxi-out by month and year, which is where the runway construction summers show up.
Which airports have the most weather delays?
Dallas/Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare, if you count what the airlines code as weather: 2.0 and 1.7 minutes of weather delay per arriving flight, with Detroit, Minneapolis and the Great Lakes airports behind them. But weather is the smaller number everywhere. The air traffic system holds that bad weather triggers are far larger: 9.7 minutes per arrival at San Francisco, 7.7 at Newark, 7.3 at LaGuardia, 6.9 at O’Hare and 6.7 at Boston, where fog or a thunderstorm becomes flow control for the whole afternoon. Oakland, San Jose, Kahului and Honolulu are the least weather-affected big airports.
| Airport | Weather | Air traffic system | Late aircraft | Arrived on time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco (SFO) | 0.8 | 9.7 | 7.2 | 68.0% |
| Chicago O’Hare (ORD) | 1.7 | 6.9 | 7.7 | 73.7% |
| Newark (EWR) | 0.7 | 7.7 | 6.1 | 77.3% |
| New York LaGuardia (LGA) | 0.9 | 7.3 | 6.9 | 72.7% |
| Washington National (DCA) | 1.3 | 5.9 | 9.0 | 71.6% |
| Boston (BOS) | 0.6 | 6.7 | 7.0 | 73.3% |
| Fort Lauderdale (FLL) | 0.6 | 5.0 | 9.2 | 72.0% |
| Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) | 2.0 | 3.2 | 8.7 | 77.5% |
| New York JFK (JFK) | 0.6 | 4.7 | 5.4 | 77.9% |
| Detroit (DTW) | 1.7 | 2.3 | 4.8 | 79.6% |
| Oakland (OAK) | 0.1 | 0.6 | 5.6 | 80.3% |
The coding matters: a ground stop at Newark because of thunderstorms is a National Airspace System delay, not a weather delay, and the plane that then arrives late at its next stop is a late-aircraft delay there. The Weather tab ranks airports on weather and air-traffic-system minutes per arriving flight for any period, so a snow season or a hurricane month can be isolated.
Which airports lost their hubs?
St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Memphis. St. Louis had 169,606 departures in 2000 and 64,202 in 2025, down 62%, after American wound down the hub it inherited from TWA; Pittsburgh fell 59% when US Airways left, Cincinnati 55% and Memphis 56% as Delta consolidated after absorbing Northwest. Denver went the other way, from 137,302 departures to 317,686 (+131%), and JFK (+130%), Austin (+103%), Nashville (+82%) and Miami (+67%) grew fastest among the rest.
| Airport | 2000 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Louis (STL) | 169,606 | 64,202 | −62% |
| Pittsburgh (PIT) | 106,238 | 43,176 | −59% |
| Memphis (MEM) | 54,495 | 24,002 | −56% |
| Cincinnati (CVG) | 73,816 | 33,489 | −55% |
| Oakland (OAK) | 57,103 | 34,591 | −39% |
| San Jose (SJC) | 67,715 | 45,902 | −32% |
| Cleveland (CLE) | 55,591 | 39,967 | −28% |
| Minneapolis (MSP) | 147,284 | 112,931 | −23% |
| Denver (DEN) | 137,302 | 317,686 | +131% |
| New York JFK (JFK) | 45,578 | 104,760 | +130% |
| Austin (AUS) | 42,686 | 86,731 | +103% |
| Nashville (BNA) | 57,676 | 105,241 | +82% |
| Miami (MIA) | 66,914 | 111,907 | +67% |
| Washington National (DCA) | 85,932 | 142,506 | +66% |
| Orlando (MCO) | 99,951 | 160,048 | +60% |
| Charlotte (CLT) | 130,623 | 195,425 | +50% |
Los Angeles (−10%), Detroit (−20%) and Philadelphia (−20%) also have fewer departures than in 2000, though with bigger aircraft on each. The Winners and losers tab compares any two years you pick for every airport.
How many places can you fly to nonstop from each airport?
On an average day Dallas/Fort Worth has nonstop departures to 176 airports, Denver to 172, Chicago O’Hare to 160 and Atlanta to 130; Charlotte (114) and Phoenix (101) are the only others over 100. Atlanta is served by the most airlines on a typical day, 11.8, with O’Hare (11.4) and Boston (10.6) next. Over the whole period Atlanta had scheduled service to 153 different airports.
| Airport | Destinations a day | Airlines a day | Departures a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) | 176 | 9.8 | 856 |
| Denver (DEN) | 172 | 9.0 | 875 |
| Chicago O’Hare (ORD) | 160 | 11.4 | 986 |
| Atlanta (ATL) | 130 | 11.8 | 865 |
| Charlotte (CLT) | 114 | 9.8 | 497 |
| Phoenix (PHX) | 101 | 10.3 | 541 |
| Washington National (DCA) | 96 | 10.3 | 390 |
| Minneapolis (MSP) | 94 | 10.2 | 313 |
| Las Vegas (LAS) | 94 | 10.1 | 474 |
| Salt Lake City (SLC) | 88 | 8.9 | 323 |
The Destinations tab lists every destination from the airport you choose, or click any dot on either map, with flights a month, on-time rate and the airlines flying it, which is where the hub-and-spoke shape of Charlotte or Salt Lake City becomes obvious against the point-to-point spread of Las Vegas.
How was this measured?
Flights come from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance tables, which cover the domestic flights of airlines above the DOT reporting threshold, so an airport’s departures here are its reported scheduled departures, not every movement. Departure on time means the flight left the gate less than 15 minutes late; arrival on time, less than 15 minutes late at the gate. Taxi times exist from 1995 and delay causes from June 2003. Airport coordinates and names are from OurAirports and the BTS lookup tables.
“Large” on this page means 100 or more scheduled departures a day, 36,500 in the period. The period is the report’s default, 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026; the hub comparison uses calendar 2000 and calendar 2025.
The data lives in a Power BI semantic model on Microsoft Fabric. Every number on this page was produced by an AI assistant running the report’s own queries against that model, and the same model powers the live public report.
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