Dumb Rankings From Haters Incorrectly Say PDX Is No Longer The Best Airport in America

It just can't be right.

By Sophia June

The annual airport rankings are out, which is a disproportionately important day for the city of Portland, which prides itself a strange amount on our airport.

Today marks devastating news for PDX-lovers. The Portland International Airport dropped to—wait for it—no. 5 on the J.D. Power airport rankings list. We're not used to no. 5. We ranked no. 1 on the same list for the last two years and for the last four years, we've been voted the America's Best Airport by Travel + Leisure readers.

But today, our enemy was revealed. The new number one airport in America is the Orange County/John Wayne airport in Santa Ana, Calif.

It seems that airports around the country are really jumping the shark trying to please customers. The San Francisco airport even has an extremely cute therapy pig dressed as a pilot, for god's sake, as reported by USA Today. Meanwhile, the San Diego airport hired a street circus to perform in the terminals.

It's unclear what makes the John Wayne airport 13 entire points better than Portland. They have pet relief areas, which we have. They have a statue of racist John Wayne, which we don't have. Maybe the new carpet has finally caught up with us.

With the caveat that we prefer the Travel + Leisure rankings, here's the top 10, with scores out of 800:

1. Orange County/John Wayne (SNA), 796

2. Tampa (TPA), 795

3. Dallas Love (DAL), 790

4. Nashville (BNA), 788

5. Portland, Ore. (PDX), 783

6. Austin (AUS), 774

7. Houston Hobby (HOU), 765

8. San Diego (SAN), 757

9. Washington Reagan National (DCA), 755

10. Salt Lake City (SLC), 754

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.