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Mickey and Minnie Mouse come throughout as a contented couple with no care on the planet, proper? Effectively, we don’t know what Mickey and Minnie suppose, however a whole lot of vacationers look like sad with the Southern California airport that’s closest to the pair’s Los Angeles-area office—Disneyland.

Based mostly on Twitter exercise, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, angers its vacationers greater than another U.S. airport. To reach at that conclusion, Forbes Advisor analyzed greater than 37,000 tweets directed on the 60 busiest airports within the U.S. from March 2022 to March 2023. We then used a machine studying software to investigate the sentiment of every tweet and decide the place vacationers are most irritated.

The evaluation discovered that almost two-thirds (65%) of the tweets geared toward John Wayne Airport could possibly be characterised as “indignant.” The phrases that popped up most in tweets from disgruntled John Wayne Airport vacationers had been “noise,” “employees, “TSA,” “complaints” and “delayed.”

By comparability, vacationers fumed in a decrease share of tweets focused at two neighboring airports—Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (55%) and Hollywood Burbank Airport (54%).

Elsewhere, Indianapolis Worldwide Airport grabbed the award for the least hacked-off air vacationers on Twitter, one of many web’s favourite locations to gripe.

Key Findings

  • Greater than half (52%) of tweets from vacationers who @-mentioned an airport had been indignant
  • The three mostly used phrases in indignant airport tweets are “delays,” “safety” and “hours”
  • John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, angers its vacationers greater than another main airport
  • The world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Worldwide Airport, is the sixth most anger-inducing large airport within the nation
  • Customers of the airports serving Indianapolis, Seattle-Tacoma and Kansas Metropolis are the least indignant based mostly on Twitter exercise

Do Indignant Tweets Really Mirror the Expertise at John Wayne Airport?

Outcomes of John Wayne Airport’s personal passenger survey present a excessive total airport approval score. Almost three-fourths (73%) of passengers who had been surveyed in 2022 awarded the airport an total rating of 5 out of 5.

In a information launch asserting the survey findings, Charlene Reynolds, director of John Wayne Airport, mentioned the outcomes spotlight the airport’s “dedication to ship secure and handy air journey and a superior visitor expertise vacationers can depend on.” The airport serves greater than 11 million passengers a yr.

Unbiased analysis additionally provides the airport excessive marks. In 2022, The Wall Avenue Journal ranked John Wayne Airport because the ninth greatest midsize airport within the nation. The airport landed in a good higher spot (No. 2) within the massive airport class of the J.D. Energy 2022 North America Airport Satisfaction Examine.

Digging deeper, John Wayne Airport neither shines nor sinks in two areas that infuriate many vacationers: on-time arrivals and departures, and wait occasions at safety checkpoints.

The airport reveals up at No. 10 within the WSJ’s reliability class, which covers arrivals and departures. Nevertheless it doesn’t fare as nicely for wait occasions for TSA and passport management checkpoints at 39 U.S. airports, rating twenty ninth in a 2022 rating by baggage storage service Bounce of the longest.

Officers on the airport had been unavailable to touch upon the Forbes Advisor findings.

An Clarification for the Frustration?

Jeremy Hyatt, principal at Southern California PR agency Inexperienced Flash Media, often flies out and in of John Wayne Airport, whose airport code is SNA. He presents a possible clarification for not less than a few of the indignant SNA tweets.

“Touring to SNA for trip or spring break might be difficult for a lot of guests as a consequence of lengthy rental automobile and TSA strains, surprising California taxes and charges, restricted take-off and touchdown occasions, and prolonged baggage wait occasions,” says Hyatt, who lives in Dana Level, about 25 miles southeast of the airport. “These irritating experiences could make a visit much less gratifying.”

Nonetheless, Hyatt describes SNA as a “unbelievable” airport for enterprise and leisure vacationers. Why? As a result of it’s a small, easy-to-navigate airport that gives quick access to gates and a top-notch valet service, he says.

Straightforward in Indy

Maybe those that use Indianapolis Worldwide Airport aren’t as vulnerable to firing off indignant tweets as a result of it’s straightforward to navigate, particularly in contrast with airports in larger cities.

Nikki Frazer, a retail and digital strategist at skilled providers agency PwC, flies out and in of the Indy airport every week. She appreciates that it’s “small and environment friendly.” Frazer lives about 35 miles northeast of the airport within the Indianapolis suburb of Westfield.

Frazer isn’t the one traveler who appreciates the Indy airport. Within the J.D. Energy 2022 North America Airport Satisfaction Examine, the airport ranked No. 1 for buyer satisfaction amongst midsize airports in North America.

“We attempt for the Indy airport to be the epitome of Hoosier Hospitality, and that makes a profound impression on the general traveler expertise to our group,” Mario Rodriguez, government director of the Indianapolis Airport Authority, mentioned in a information launch concerning the newest J.D. Energy accolades.

In distinction to the J.D. Energy examine, The Wall Avenue Journal positioned the Indy airport at No. 18 amongst 30 midsize airports within the U.S. Within the WSJ’s reliability class, which includes arrivals and departures, the airport appeared at No. 20. The Indy airport wasn’t included within the Bounce examine of TSA and passport management wait occasions.

Airport officers couldn’t be reached for remark.

Whereas Frazer presents some reward for the Indy airport, she additionally suggests some enhancements. She needs there have been extra sit-down eating places and extra issues to do throughout flight delays.

“I’d additionally prefer to see them add CLEAR (Plus), as (TSA) PreCheck is beginning to get backed up at occasions,” Frazer mentioned.

Different Airports

A number of the different airports that ranked among the many most complained about by Twitter customers, additionally obtained excessive marks from J.D. Energy.

Some 60% of tweets directed towards Jacksonville Worldwide Airport had been deemed indignant, with the preferred complaints specializing in strains, delays and the TSA. That airport ranked third amongst medium airports for buyer satisfaction. Tampa Worldwide Airport, which registered 57% of tweets directed towards it as adverse, ranked No. 1 in passenger satisfaction by J.D. Energy.

Methodology

In March 2023, we analyzed greater than 37,000 tweets directed on the 60 busiest airports in america over the previous 12 months. We established the record of airports based mostly on complete passenger boardings in 2021, as reported by the FAA. A given tweet was designated as being directed at one of many airports if the tweet cited the official Twitter deal with of that airport in its message, informally often called “@ mentioning” or “@-ing” an entity.

As soon as we amassed our uncooked set of tweets, we processed them with a Python-based machine studying software that measures the sentiment of language in every tweet. Every tweet was scored on traits of “unhappiness,” “pleasure,” “love,” “anger,” “worry,” and “shock.” Then every tweet was tagged with the emotion it scored highest for. On this case, we centered our evaluation completely on tweets tagged as “anger.” To determine airports with the angriest vacationers we calculated the overall variety of indignant tweets as a proportion of all tweets directed at that airport.

It’s essential to notice that on Twitter, there’s a appreciable ecosystem of non-traveler entities tweeting at airports regularly, starting from native TSA accounts to information media to aviation trade analysts. To focus our evaluation on tweets from common vacationers, and to filter out recurring @ mentions from non-travelers, we solely analyzed tweets from Twitter handles that @ talked about an airport 4 occasions or much less up to now yr.

Of the 60 busiest airports, seven had been excluded from our evaluation for both not having an official Twitter deal with (OGG, SJU, HNL) or not being tweeted at greater than 50 occasions over the previous yr (ANC, PBI, MSY, SMF).