Massachusetts is Home to One of the Most Weather-Delayed Airports in the Country

These days, for the most part, air travel is safe, quick, and reliable.  Yes, it can be a pain, but most of us know what to expect when we get to the airport.

Of course, weather can cause some major flight delays.  That is especially true this time of year.  Heavy snow, accompanied by strong winds, can literally shut down even our major airports.

Recently, Weather.com put out their list of the most weather-delayed airports in the United States.  It should not be a big surprise that many of the airports on the list were in colder climates.

New England did get some representation on the list.  Boston’s Logan International Airport came in at number six on the top 10.

The researchers, who looked at a decade of flight delay records, found that intense snowstorms were not the only issue with Logan International Airport.  Due to the airport’s proximity to Boston Harbor, they found that fog was another major reason for flight delays.

On top of that, they found that it was the windiest major airport in the country.  Gusts of over 30 miles per hour are not uncommon at Logan International Airport.

Over the course of a decade, over 126,000 Logan International Flights were delayed, and about 46% of all flights were delayed in some way.

So if you are flying out of Logan International Airport for your next vacation or business trip, you may want to make sure that you’ve got some extra time to catch that connecting flight.

One of my only experiences at Logan International Airport involved a weather delay.  In March of 2001, I flew into the airport.  I was supposed to catch a connecting flight to Bangor.  After a really rough touchdown at Logan, it was really clear that I was not going to be going anywhere that night.  Not wanting to pay for a hotel room, I ended up sleeping on the floor of the terminal.  The accommodations could have been a lot worse.

Other airports on the list include Denver International Airport at #5, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport at #1, and San Francisco at #2.  The airport with the most weather delays is Newark Liberty International Airport.  About 64% of all flights from the New Jersey airport are delayed.  The main reasons are a mixture of snow and thunderstorms.