If you’re flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport anytime soon, you may want to bring an extra book to read.
The airport ranked as the worst in the U.S. for having the highest share of flights that were delayed for over 15 minutes or cancelled, according to a report from air-passenger rights company AirHelp. Only 64% of flights departed Newark on time.
To produce its report, AirHelp analyzed flight data for flights that occurred between June 1 and July 31 out of airports that had more than 1,000 flights for those months.
Passengers looking to travel to or from the Big Apple won’t do much better flying out of other New York City-area airports. LaGuardia Airport’s on-time performance rate was only 66%, the third worst in the nation just behind Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s 65%. John F. Kennedy International Airport came in at No. 8, with almost 74% of its flights leaving on time.
Here is the rest of the 10 worst U.S. airports for flight delays or cancellations. Percentages have been rounded up to the nearest 10th decimal:
| Ranking | Departure airport | On-time performance |
| 1 | Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) | 64% |
| 2 | Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) | 65% |
| 3 | LaGuardia Airport (LGA) | 66% |
| 4 | Denver International Airport (DEN) | 66% |
| 5 | Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) | 68.5% |
| 6 | George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) | 71% |
| 7 | Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) | 73% |
| 8 | John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) | 74% |
| 9 | Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) | 77% |
| 10 | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) | 77.5% |
As some airport representatives noted to MarketWatch, airlines manage their own schedules individually — so an airport’s track record is a reflection of various airlines’ operational decisions. Weather also plays a huge role in delays and cancellations — as a result, issues at an airport in an area with bad weather can create a domino effect for airports elsewhere.
“Weather is the largest contributor to flight delays and as you know we have pretty great weather here, most often our flights get delayed by the other side,” such as bad weather in New York, Dallas or Chicago, said Heath Montgomery, director of public relations at Los Angeles World Airports, the airport authority that owns and operates Los Angeles International Airport and Van Nuys Airport. He also noted data can vary significantly from month to month.
Some airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, also noted that AirHelp’s report differed from the official statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (AirHelp’s report was based on a range of sources including government agencies, airport data banks, flight-tracking vendors and commercial data brokers.)
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has only reported on-time flight performance through June. Here are the rankings of the nation’s 30 largest airports from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in order from best to worst based on their on-time departure rates for the year to date.
| Rank | Airport | Rate |
| 1 | Portland, OR (PDX) | 86.3% |
| 2 | Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) | 84.7% |
| 3 | Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (MSP) | 82.8% |
| 4 | Seattle, WA (SEA) | 82.3% |
| 5 | Washington, DC (IAD) | 82.0% |
| 6 | Detroit, MI (DTW) | 81.8% |
| 7 | Atlanta, GA (ATL) | 81.4% |
| 8 | Philadelphia, PA (PHL) | 80.7% |
| 9 | New York, NY (JFK) | 79.7% |
| 10 | Miami, FL (MIA) | 79.4% |
| 11 | Tampa, FL (TPA) | 79.2% |
| 12 | San Diego, CA (SAN) | 79.1% |
| 13 | Los Angeles, CA (LAX) | 78.7% |
| 14 | Houston, TX (IAH) | 78.6% |
| 15 | Washington, DC (DCA) | 78.5% |
| 16 | Charlotte, NC (CLT) | 78.2% |
| 17 | Phoenix, AZ (PHX) | 78.2% |
| 18 | Las Vegas, NV (LAS) | 76.9% |
| 19 | Baltimore, MD (BWI) | 76.4% |
| 20 | Orlando, FL (MCO) | 76.3% |
| 21 | Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) | 76.0% |
| 22 | Boston, MA (BOS) | 75.6% |
| 23 | San Francisco, CA (SFO) | 75.2% |
| 24 | New York, NY (LGA) | 73.9% |
| 25 | Denver, CO (DEN) | 73.9% |
| 26 | Dallas/Fort Worth, TX (DFW) | 73.0% |
| 27 | Chicago, IL (ORD) | 72.1% |
| 28 | Dallas, TX (DAL) | 71.3% |
| 29 | Newark, NJ (EWR) | 70.8% |
| 30 | Chicago, IL (MDW) | 65.7% |
Still, passengers traveling domestically in the U.S. may have it easier than those traveling in Europe. Only 47.1% of flights departed Mykonos Airport in Greece on time this summer, making it the worst-performing airport in the continent. Other airports with worse track records than Newark include those in Milan, Italy (59%); London Gatwick, England (59%); and Lisbon, Portugal (62%).
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