Why Phoenix Sky Harbor dropped in JD Power's airport ranking (and how it's improving)
The results of J.D. Power's latest airport survey are in, and the Phoenix airport found itself in an unlucky position.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport ranked as the No. 13 mega airport on J.D. Power's 2023 North America Airport Satisfaction Study, down two spots from No. 11 last year even though its customer satisfaction rating increased by four points. Mega airports are airports with 33 million or more annual passengers.
The drop doesn't mean Sky Harbor's customer service rating has suffered, but that other airports have pushed ahead of it, said Michael Taylor, J.D. Power's senior managing director of travel, hospitality, retail and customer service.
Plus, the airport has done well in managing crowds, something that can typically push a customer service rating down, he added.
Sky Harbor topped J.D. Power's survey in 2020. The top mega airport for 2023 is Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.
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How was J.D. Power's 2023 airport ranking conducted?
J.D. Power's 2023 airport satisfaction study, now in its 18th year, was compiled from 27,147 surveys from U.S. and Canadian residents who traveled through at least one U.S. or Canadian airport between August 2022 and July 2023.
It evaluated airports based on customer experiences with terminal facilities, airport arrival and departure, baggage claim, security check, check-in and baggage check, and food, beverage and retail.
Why is Phoenix Sky Harbor No. 13 in JD Power's airport ranking?
Despite the four-point increase from 2022, the Phoenix airport fell two places in the ranking.
Denver International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston moved ahead of Phoenix as their ratings saw more significant improvements — Denver for alleviating terminal construction woes and Houston for expanding its food and beverage options, Taylor said.
The slight bump in Sky Harbor's score came as the airport handled record travel volumes in recent months, managing major events like the Super Bowl 2023 and pent-up demand for air travel following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
A crush of crowds can bring down a customer service rating because more passengers at a given time translates to more time waiting to get through security and get food and drinks, Taylor said.
"They're up four points, which is pretty darn good considering the amount of people that went through Phoenix this year, especially during Super Bowl time," he said.
New amenities could help improve the Phoenix airport's rating
Sky Harbor officials work continuously to improve the customer experience.
In the early part of the 12-month period covered in the J.D. Power study, Sky Harbor passengers had to ride a shuttle bus between the terminals and the Rental Car Center and lengthy waits were common.
Airport officials remedied that inconvenience in time for Christmas 2022 when they extended the PHX Sky Train, connecting it to the Rental Car Center and a new Sky Train station at 24th Street that has parking and allows passenger pickups and dropoffs.
One area where Sky Harbor could use improvement, based on passenger responses from the survey period, is food, beverage and retail options. A possible reason for this is because the new concourse at Terminal 4, used exclusively for Southwest Airlines flights, only had temporary restaurant and retail kiosks in its first year.
But six restaurants and two shops opened there in recent weeks, most recently Arizona's first airport Chick-Fil-A location on Sept. 7. Next month, Phoenix city officials will consider plans for two more restaurants and two more shops at the concourse.
Improving the customer experience is important because J.D. Power's study showed that satisfied passengers tend to spend more money at the airport, Taylor said.
And people are willing to spend more at airports that offer local and unique restaurant options, like Sky Harbor does, he said. Keeping up with that preference, the restaurants that just opened in the new Terminal 4 concourse include regional sandwich chain Eegee's and popular brewery Pedal Haus.
The effect of a full year of the Sky Train extension and the debuts of the new restaurants could lead to a higher rating in next year's study, Taylor said. On average, it takes about 1½ years for improvements to have a significant impact on an airport's ranking.
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What did Phoenix Sky Harbor officials say about the JD Power rating?
While Sky Harbor could not immediately comment on the survey results, airport spokeswoman Tamra Ingersoll said the airport's staff envisions "an extraordinary airport for a thriving Phoenix."
She cited the airport's ability to handle record-breaking traffic, including a new record for the airport's busiest day ever the day after Super Bowl 2023, which coincided with the end of the WM Phoenix Open golf tournament. Airport data showed Sky Harbor beat pre-pandemic traffic in six of the first seven months of 2023.
Besides the Sky Train extension and new Terminal 4 restaurants, efforts to improve the customer experience included being the first airport in the U.S. to offer Mobile ID on Apple devices, the first airport in the world to offer autonomous vehicle rideshares via Waymo, and introducing services to enhance accessibility for disabled passengers, Ingersoll said.
And their work isn't finished yet, she said. Future improvements include a new taxiway — a project benefiting from federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding — that would help shorten the waits for planes on the ground, a new concourse at Terminal 3 and a post-security pedestrian bridge connecting Terminals 3 and 4.
Reach the reporter at Michael.Salerno@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @salerno_phx.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Best airports of 2023: Where Phoenix ranked in JD Power's rating
