Toronto Pearson ranked second-worst among 'mega' airports for customer satisfaction: survey

People are shown at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Friday, March 10, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Toronto Pearson International Airport has among the lowest customer satisfaction rankings among North America’s biggest airports once again, a new survey has found.

J.D. Power published its annual North American Airport Satisfaction survey on Wednesday and ranked Canada's busiest airport 20th out of 21 mega-sized airports when it comes to customer satisfaction.

The Toronto airport scored 559 points out of 1,000, 36 points below the segment average.

Mega-sized airports are defined as those serving 33 million passengers or more per year.

"Huge air travel demand has not slowed down in North America, despite the steadily rising costs of flights, ground travel, hotel rooms and pretty much anything you can buy in an airport," Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality and retail at J.D. Power, said in a news release.

"Most travellers are still enjoying the experience. However, we are starting to see a breaking point in consumer spending, with average spend per person in the terminal declining significantly from a year ago."

The Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport ranked first in the survey while New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport placed last.

It was the second consecutive year that Pearson finished second last among mega-sized airports in the survey.

In a statement provided to CP24, a spokesperson with the airport took issue with the methodology of the survey, which was based on the responses of 26,290 fliers across North America who flew through at least one U.S. or Canadian airport and evaluated their departure or arrival at an airport.

The survey was conducted from August 2023 to July 2024.

"We have questions about the credibility of the methodology used to determine the J.D. Power tanking. The survey is heavily skewed toward U.S. travellers and doesn't verify whether respondents have actually travelled through Toronto Pearson," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Speaking to CP24 on Wednesday afternoon, Taylor responded to Pearson's concerns by pointing to the study's longevity in that J.D. Power has been conducting it for the last 26 years.

"We have people who are unsatisfied with the results but the biggest impact on Toronto Pearson is the fact that there's a great deal many more passengers travelling through Toronto and through Montreal," Taylor said. "That has a huge impact on satisfaction. If the airport is crowded, it's harder to get to, parking lots close, people get confused by the signs and directions so they're trying to doge travellers, TSA and security takes longer. There are a lot of impacts, and that's probably the biggest impact on satisfaction for … Toronto."

The study was redesigned this year, J.D. Power says, and now considers seven key factors for traveller satisfaction, including how easy it is to move through the airport, travellers' level of trust with the airport and the airport's terminal facilities.

Toronto Pearson pointed to results from a recent survey by Pollara Strategic Insights, where 83 per cent of its 2,034 respondents said they were satisfied with their overall travel experience at the airport. The survey also found recent fliers were more than four times likely to consider Pearson a reliable airport than an unreliable one, with 59 per cent of respondents deeming it so.

No other Canadian airport cracked the mega airport list.

However, Vancouver's, Calgary's and Montreal's airports all appeared in the large airports category, placing in 15th, 22nd and 26th, respectively.