We scraped 48,843 traveler reviews posted since January 2025 for the 50 busiest US airports, ran sentiment analysis on the text, and categorized what travelers actually complain about.

The results challenge a lot of assumptions about which airports are really the worst – starting with this one: JFK, not Newark, is the worst-rated major US airport in recent traveler reviews.

• JFK is the worst-rated major US airport in recent reviews – not Newark. JFK averages 3.43 stars with 24% of reviews being 1-star, the highest rate in the country.
• Charlotte and Miami rank 2nd and 3rd worst – two airports that rarely appear on “worst airports” lists.
• Navigation is the #1 complaint at 8 of the 10 worst airports. Confusing layouts, long walks between gates, and poor signage outrank delays by a factor of 3-7x.
• Cleveland has the worst TSA complaint rate in the country – 31.5% of reviews mention security issues, nearly double the next highest airport.
• Houston IAH has the highest construction complaint rate at 15.3%, driven by its Terminal D redevelopment.
• Newark is improving. Still 5th worst, but its recent reviews are better than its all-time reputation suggests.

We ranked airports by their average star rating from reviews posted between January 2025 and April 2026. This captures the current traveler experience, not historical reputation.

Three airports that made our initial screening (rated 4.0 or below all-time) actually scored well in recent reviews and didn’t make the bottom 10: Kansas City (4.35 – likely boosted by its new terminal that opened in 2023), Chicago Midway (4.27), and Honolulu (4.02).

Newark Liberty has carried the “worst airport in America” reputation for years. Its all-time Google Maps rating of 3.7 stars is the lowest among the 50 busiest US airports.

But in reviews from 2025 and 2026, JFK drops to a 3.43 average – nearly a quarter of a star worse than Newark’s 3.65. Almost 1 in 4 JFK reviews (24.0%) are 1-star, the highest rate in the country.

What’s driving JFK down? The terminal layout is a mess, according to reviewers. Over 25% of text reviews mention confusing navigation, long walks between gates, and poor signage. TSA/security complaints hit 18.9%, and staff/service issues come in at 16.1%. The airport is also mid-construction on several terminal upgrades, which 12.3% of reviewers mention.

Newark, by contrast, has been trending better. While still far from good, its recent review average (3.65) puts it 5th worst in our data, not 1st.

Charlotte Douglas (CLT) and Miami International (MIA) rank 2nd and 3rd worst in our dataset. Neither airport regularly appears on “worst airports” lists, which tend to focus on the New York-area airports and LAX.

Charlotte’s 3.56 average comes with a 21.6% 1-star rate – essentially tied with Newark. The top complaints are about the airport’s sprawling layout (20.7% of text reviews), staff and service issues (14.4%), and cleanliness (14.1%). The airport’s ongoing construction and expansion project, which will continue through 2027, is mentioned in 11.3% of reviews.

Miami is more polarizing. Its 3.57 average masks a wide distribution – 20.8% of reviews are 1-star, but it also gets plenty of 5-star reviews from international travelers praising its connections. The top complaints center on confusing terminal navigation (18.2%), TSA/security waits (14.1%), and cleanliness issues (13.8%).

The dominant complaint across all 10 worst airports is about layout, navigation, and wayfinding. Not flight delays. Not security. Not food prices. The physical experience of moving through the airport is what drives the most negative reviews.

Here’s how often navigation/layout issues are mentioned in text reviews vs. delays and cancellations:

At every airport except Cleveland, navigation outranks delays by a factor of 3-7x. Reviewers describe confusing terminal connections, gates that require taking trains or buses between buildings, and poor signage that leaves them running to make connections.

This is worth flagging for airports prioritizing capital improvements. In our data, wayfinding and terminal connectivity issues generate more negative reviews than almost any other category.

Cleveland Hopkins is an outlier. Its TSA/security complaint rate – 31.5% of text reviews – is nearly double the next highest airport (Seattle at 20.2%). No other airport crosses 20%.

The reviews describe long screening lines, understaffed checkpoints, and inconsistent enforcement of rules between agents. At 1,076 reviews analyzed (the smallest sample in our study), the sample is smaller than the other airports, but the pattern is consistent across the reviews we have.

TSA complaint rates across all 10 airports:

George Bush Intercontinental is the only airport in our study where construction cracks the top 2 complaint categories. At 15.3%, it has the highest construction complaint rate of any airport we analyzed – and it’s not close. The next highest is JFK at 12.3%, followed by Charlotte at 11.3%.

Houston’s Terminal D redevelopment and broader modernization project dominate the reviews. Travelers describe confusing detours, closed walkways, and construction noise. The navigation complaint rate (26.3%) is the second-highest in our data, likely amplified by the construction rerouting.

Philadelphia International doesn’t have the lowest star rating – it’s 4th worst at 3.62. But it has the highest share of negative review text in our keyword-based sentiment analysis: 21.0% of PHL reviews score as negative, slightly above JFK (20.5%) and MIA (20.0%).

The implication: PHL travelers aren’t just giving low stars, they’re writing detailed complaints. The top issues are terminal layout (21.9%), TSA/security (19.9%), and cleanliness (16.6%). Staff/service complaints also run high at 15.7%.

PHL’s smaller review volume (2,875 vs. 5,000 for larger airports) means each negative review carries more proportional weight, but the pattern holds across multiple complaint categories.

Here’s the complete complaint category analysis for all 10 worst airports. Percentages represent the share of text reviews mentioning each category. Because a single review can mention multiple issues, columns sum to more than 100%.

Here’s the complete complaint category analysis for all 10 worst airports. Percentages represent the share of text reviews mentioning each category. Because a single review can mention multiple issues, columns sum to more than 100%.

We collected Google Maps ratings for all 50 of the busiest US airports by annual passenger volume, based on FAA traffic data. The 50 airports span from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (the busiest) to John Glenn Columbus (the 50th busiest).

For the initial rating scan, we used the Google Maps search API via Apify to pull the overall star rating and total review count for each airport. This data was collected on April 9, 2026.

We then identified 13 airports with an all-time Google Maps rating of 4.0 stars or below. We chose 4.0 as the cutoff because it represented a natural break in the data – the next cluster of airports started at 4.1. For these 13 airports, we scraped the newest reviews posted since January 1, 2025, pulling up to 5,000 reviews per airport. This produced a total dataset of 48,843 reviews across a 15-month window (January 2025 – April 2026).

For each review with text content (as opposed to star-only reviews), we categorized complaints into 10 topic buckets using keyword matching: Navigation/Layout, TSA/Security, Cleanliness, Staff/Service, Food/Dining, Construction, Parking/Transportation, Crowding, Delays/Cancellations, and Wifi/Charging. A review mentioning “confusing,” “lost,” “signage,” or “long walk” would be tagged under Navigation/Layout, for example. A single review can be tagged in multiple categories, which is why complaint percentages for any given airport sum to more than 100%.

Sentiment scoring was also keyword-based – reviews containing clusters of negative keywords (e.g., “terrible,” “worst,” “avoid”) were flagged as negative sentiment. This is a simpler approach than machine-learning-based NLP sentiment analysis, but it’s transparent and reproducible.

The final ranking is based on the average star rating from 2025-2026 reviews only, not the all-time Google Maps rating. This means an airport with a low all-time rating but improving recent reviews (like Kansas City) can fall off the list, while an airport with a slightly better all-time rating but deteriorating recent reviews (like JFK) can rise.

Limitations: Google Maps reviews skew toward travelers motivated enough to leave feedback, which often means more negative experiences are overrepresented. The 5,000-review cap per airport means we captured different proportions of total recent reviews depending on airport size. Cleveland’s sample (1,076 reviews) is notably smaller than the other airports, so its numbers should be read as directional rather than definitive. Keyword-based complaint categorization captures explicit mentions but may miss implicit complaints. Review dates are based on Google’s display timestamps.

The full dataset, including all 48,843 reviews and the structured analysis, is available upon request.