This comparison is getting pretty heavy play at different sites (e.g., LifeHacker), but I'm kind of stunned to see Denver in the bottom half of the 30 busiest airports in the US — I find DEN comfortable, convenient, and largely a pleasant place to travel from and to. (Things are a bit zany at the moment with the main terminal reconstruction, to be fair.)
On the other hand, what do I know — the airports I have recent experience in comparing are ranked below Denver, so maybe I'm only relatively happy.
The methodology given, though, is a bit opaque — three basic categories (Amenities, Accessibility, On-Time Departures). Denver does quite well in the last, but pretty crappy in the first two. I guess I don't have the right perspective, because (a) I find the airport pretty accessible to home, Downtown, and the Tech Center through both freeway and rail, and (b) the fooderies and other amenities just fine, thanks.
The Best and Worst Airports of 2018 – The Points Guy
Our in-depth report shines a light on every aspect of the 30 busiest US airports, including accessibility, amenities and where you’re most likely to get in the air on time.
SLC has the best rental car set I’ve ever seen, I really do not see any difference between Phoenix and Denver, I hated Philadelphia with a passion, it was as bad as JFK.
The amenities that they emphasize are ones that are unimportant to me. I flew through DEN in July, and it had a varied selection of restaurants. I was happy. (Of course, all of them are better than our small airport in Ontario, California, where some amenities close for the day before dark.)
“In some cases, we jettisoned old factors — every airport but one in our study offered some form of free Wi-Fi, for example — while adding new ones, like a “green score” for environmental initiatives and yet more opportunities for airports to climb the rankings with certain “quality of life” services (think: nursing stations, pet-relief areas and spa treatments).”
I found JFK surprisingly easy to navigate for rental cars, both for pick up and return. With Global Entry it took me less than 5 minutes from leaving the plane to lighting a cigarette outside the airport.
The security lanes were long, but the process was as fast and painless as I have not expected: Put backpack and cabin luggage into two bins, walk through a detector gate and that was it.
No "take off your shoes, belt, watch, put all metal gear from money, keys, phone etc. into a bin. Put all tablets, laptops into a separate bin". None of that bullshit at JFK 3 days ago.
Very pleasant surprise.
+John E. Bredehoft " nursing stations, pet-relief areas and spa treatments" — none of which affect me, though I can imagine (esp. the first) them as something that would be important to certain flyers.
I guess the question is, how critical are spa treatments to the majority of people arrive at, departing from, or transiting through a given airport?
+Dave Hill yep, exactly. Very few of the criteria were things that mattered to me.
Which actually brings up the question of, beyond home town bragging rights or sharing stories about awful (or sometimes great) experiences, how does this list actually affect most travelers.
I suppose that getting a crap rating might force an airport's leadership to answer to their bosses as to why they aren't doing better. And I suppose, in particularly egregious cases, it might influence travel (e.g., being willing to pay extra and travel further to go to any other airport in the LA Metro Area than LAX itself).
But for the most part, people coming to Denver are going to fly into (or through) DEN whether or not we have spa treatments.
+Dave Hill Connecting flights might be an issue. “No, I’m not flying American. I don’t want to go through Dallas!” In such a scenario, United will be intensely interested in how DEN is perceived.