NJ Airport Ranks No. 2 in the World for Cancellations (Opinion)

More than any other in recent years, this is the summer for travel. Forget about the fact that summer is always vacation time. This year, there’s a burning desire in so many people who have been cooped up since the COVID-19 lockdowns to get the hell out of Dodge.

If you’ve traveled recently, you know this already. Canceled flights and delays have been the bane of every traveler's existence.

So the demand is back, but unfortunately, staffing problems have led to a veritable quagmire in most airports across the country. Especially the international ones.

CNN recently reported FlightAware data that shows which global airports have had the most delays and cancellations.

And, to no one‘s surprise, of all the airports in the world, Newark makes the cut.
For cancellations, that is. At least it didn’t make the top 10 delays list, which includes only one American airport and that’s Orlando international airport in Florida coming in at No. 10 of the top 10 most delays.

But what’s worse than delays is cancellations. And in that area, we shine. No. 2 in the world for flight cancellations in global airports is Newark Liberty International. That’s in the whole world. About 7.4% of scheduled flights at Newark Airport get canceled.

There’s a general feeling that Newark Airport has always been fairly unreliable so you can imagine how flights have been at Newark during this season.

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We’re right behind number one Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in China, which leads the pack in flight cancellations with 7.9% of its flights getting canceled, and just ahead of another airport in our general area, No. 3, LaGuardia in New York with 7% of all flights canceled.

The other American airport that made the top 10 list of flight cancellations was Ronald Reagan International in Washington, D.C., coming in at No. 8 with cancellations of 5% of its scheduled flights.

And, while things will probably start to ease up a little bit by fall, no one knows when this will end. So the bad news is this cancellation situation will probably go on for some time to come. But there is a little bit of a bright spot, I suppose. At least we know that it’s not just here in this country that air travel has become a nightmare. We are in a pretty good global company.