RDU airport ranking slips in annual North American customer-satisfaction survey
Raleigh-Durham International Airport has done well in J.D. Power’s annual, customer-satisfaction rankings, landing in the top 5 among the nation’s “large” airports several years in a row.
This year it ranked 13th out of 27 airports.
Improvements at other airports may explain some of the decline in RDU’s relative ranking, says Michael Taylor, who analyzed the survey data for the consumer analytics firm. Overall, Taylor said, RDU remains above average and people generally like the airport facilities and find it easy to navigate.
“They’ve got a good airport,” said Taylor, the managing director of travel, hospitality and retail at J.D. Power.
But customers rated RDU relatively poorly in one area in particular: food, beverage and retail. Taylor said what people can buy, eat and drink while they wait for their flight often distinguishes good airports from great ones.
“So people going through RDU actually like it,” he said. “There’s just a couple of areas that they need to tweak, and they can become one of the top airports again.”
RDU is working on it. Several restaurants and retailers who closed during the COVID-19 pandemic have not yet been replaced, leaving a dozen walled-off spaces in the terminals where travelers could once get a beer or something to eat.
But behind those walls, contractors are working on new restaurants and bars. Ten are expected to open in the coming months, most in Terminal 2, the largest and busiest at RDU.
Three places recently opened: Black & White Coffee Roasters; Carolina Craft, a bar serving beer, cocktails, charcuterie boards and other small plates, and Crawford’s Genuine, a 95-seat restaurant and bar from Triangle chef Scott Crawford.
Ellis Hankins, who leads the airport’s governing board, said it’s making progress.
“We’re getting close to where we need to be after the pandemic disruptions,” Hankins told fellow board members Thursday.
The J.D. Power customer-satisfaction study has been a source of pride for RDU; the airport has mentioned its top 5 ranking at the bottom of every press release in recent years. On Thursday, a spokeswoman said the airport did not yet have any insight into the scoring of the latest J.D. Power report and would not comment.
How J.D. Power measures consumer satisfaction
The annual study is based on 26,290 passenger surveys from August 2023 through July 2024. It looks at airport performance in seven categories, in descending order of importance: ease of travel through the airport; level of trust with the airport; terminal facilities; airport staff; the experience as a departing passenger; food, beverage and retail; and the experience as an arriving passenger.
J.D. Power surveys travelers at 62 airports in the U.S. and Canada that it divides them into three categories based on passenger volume: medium, large and “mega,” those handling more than 33 million passengers a year.
The average score for large airports, out of a possible 1,000, was 629 this year. RDU had 644 points. The top airport in the large category was John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with 687 points. At the bottom was Philadelphia International, with 541 points.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a hub for American Airlines, ranked 15th out of 20 mega airports. Minneapolis-St. Paul topped the category, while Newark Liberty came in last.
No other North Carolina airports were included in the study.
Overall, Taylor said, airports are holding up pretty well with customers given the record numbers of travelers. RDU is well on pace this year to exceed the record 14.5 million passengers it served in 2023.
Despite the crowds and widespread flight cancellations and delays, 60% of passengers surveyed somewhat or strongly agreed they enjoyed spending time in their airport, according to the J.D. Power report. Another 59% agreed that their airport helped alleviate the stress of travel.
But Taylor said he thinks travelers have reached an inflection point when it comes to spending money in airport terminals. Passengers reported spending less this year on food, beverage and other items, the first decline in at least six years.
Taylor says people are beginning to find prices too high.
“There’s only so much people are willing to pay no matter how good the quality is,” he said.
This story was originally published September 19, 2024 at 3:27 PM with the headline "RDU airport ranking slips in annual North American customer-satisfaction survey."
