ST. LOUIS – New research finds that customer satisfaction at St. Louis Lambert International Airport ranks lower than most airports of similar size in North America, nearly the worst among its size classification.
J.D. Power, a U.S. consumer analytics firm, recently released its 2024 North America Airport Satisfaction Study.
Among 27 “large airports” featured in the study, Lambert Airport ranked third from the bottom, only finishing ahead of Montreal’s and Philadelphia’s international airports in satisfaction.
J.D. Power ranked airports using a 1,000-point index scale. The average score among “large” North American airports was 629. St. Louis finished with a score of 583.
Nearly 27,000 airport passengers in North America were surveyed on their experience as part of the study. Scores were assigned based on seven different categories, including:
Ease of travel through airport
Level of trust with airport
Terminal facilities
Airport staff
Departure-to-airport experience
Arrival-from-airport experience
Food, beverage and retail services
J.D. Power says factors such as high demand, easy crowd navigation and unique identities of airports may also contribute to stronger overall index scores.
“Huge air travel demand has not slowed down in North America, despite the steadily rising costs of flights, ground travel, hotel rooms and pretty much anything you can buy in an airport,” said Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality and retail at J.D. Power via a news release on the study. “Most travelers are still enjoying the experience. However, we are starting to see a breaking point in consumer spending, with average spend per person in the terminal declining significantly from a year ago.”
The study recognized Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, California’s John Wayne Airport and Indianapolis International Airport as the best mega-sized, large-sized and medium-sized airports in North America respectively based on their index scores.
