Here’s The World’s Top 10 Airports (None Of Them Are In The U.S.)

Here’s The World’s Top 10 Airports (None Of Them Are In The U.S.)

Skytrax is out with their list of World’s Best Airports for 2020.  And if you’re wondering where your home airport ranks, you’ll have to look far down the list if you’re in the United States.  The highest ranked U.S. airport in the general list comes in at #31, Houston George Bush.  Asia steals the show with the world’s top 10 airports, as 8 out 10 are located in Asian countries.  For the eighth year in a row, Singapore Changi took the top spot.  U.S. airlines fared a little better when ranked by passenger traffic.

Here’s the list of top 10 worldwide airports:

1. Singapore Changi
2. Tokyo Haneda
3. Doha Hamad
4. Seoul Incheon
5. Munich
6. Hong Kong
7. Tokyo Narita
8. Centrair Nagoya
9. Amsterdam Schiphol
10. Kansai

Here’s the list of where the top 10 airports located in the U.S. rank:

• Houston George Bush (31)
• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky (34)
• Denver (37)
• Atlanta (41)
• San Francisco (54)
• Seattle-Tacoma (56)
• Houston Hobby (67)
• Los Angeles (75)
• New York JFK (77)
• Minneapolis St. Paul (81)

The United States does not even take the top North American airport title — that belongs to Vancouver International Airport.

Rankings Based On Passenger Traffic

U.S. airlines fared a little better when taking into account the number of passengers.  In the 40-50 million category, five of the top ten airports were in the United States.  Denver International Airport took fifth place in the 60 million passenger category.  In the top capacity category of airports with 70+ million passengers, Atlanta took ninth place and Dallas took tenth.

Bipartisan Support That U.S. Airports Are Bad

Believe it or not, there is actually bipartisan support against U.S. airports.  Both the Republican and Democrat nominee in 2020 for President of the United States have criticized our airports in the past.  In 2014, Biden praised Hong Kong airport while claiming that if somebody ended up in LaGuardia they would think they were “in a third world country.”  Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made a similar comment while speaking on infrastructure during the 2016 campaign.  Trump said, “Our airports are like from a third world country.”  Perhaps both sides of the aisle are onto something — and yet still haven’t done anything about it.

.@realDonaldTrump: “Our airports are like from a Third World country…We’re a debtor nation.” pic.twitter.com/f87vroNxcr

— POLITICO (@politico) September 27, 2016

Skytrax selects the top airlines through customer surveys conducted from September 2019 to February 2020.

Bottom Line

U.S. airports didn’t fare very well in the generalized category for the top airports, but did a little better when broken up by passenger traffic.  One would think that maybe our airports could improve slightly, given the fact that two very different people — Trump and Biden — are in agreement on this issue.  But alas, after promises of an infrastructure bill to improve our nation’s airport, nothing has been accomplished.  So for now we’ll have to settle with being where we are in the global rankings.

What do you think?  Do you agree with these airport rankings?