ST. LOUIS COUNTY — St. Louis Lambert International Airport logged another poor ranking in the latest J.D. Power airport satisfaction survey released Wednesday.
The 19th annual report placed Lambert as 25th out of 27 North American airports in the “large” category, down from its 22nd-place finish a year ago. The only airports scoring lower were in Montreal and Philadelphia.
The survey measures overall passenger satisfaction with ease of travel inside the airport; level of trust; terminal facilities; airport staff; food, beverage and retail; and the arrival and departure experience.
Mike Taylor, a J.D. Power official, pointed out that Lambert has plans for a $2.8 billion overhaul in coming years — involving consolidating its two terminals into a single new passenger concourse.
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“I think St. Louis is making the right moves here,” he said of the plan, which he said “addresses all the things we see in the J.D. Power data that St. Louis should be doing.”
Other aspects of the plan include a new main garage, road improvements, one large security checkpoint replacing the current two, a wider concourse and improved shops and restaurants. Plans call for construction to begin at the end of 2026, if airlines agree.
Taylor said an airport’s scores on the survey typically decline before a major renovation project gets underway.
Lambert officials declined to comment on the new survey.
John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, ranked first in the large airport category covering facilities with 10 million to 32.9 million passengers a year. In second and third were airports in Tampa and Kansas City.
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had the highest ranking among “mega” airports with more than 33 million passengers annually, followed by airports in Detroit and Phoenix. The lowest-ranked “mega” airports were Newark Liberty, Toronto and Chicago O’Hare.
Indianapolis had the highest-ranked medium airport and Cleveland the lowest scoring.
The study is based on completed surveys from August 2023 to July of this year from 26,290 people who traveled through at least one American or Canadian airport.
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.
