Our airport’s welcome mat is shabby, national survey shows

The welcome mat at Miami’s front door isn’t welcoming enough.

That front door is Miami International Airport, where most of the 96% of our visitors who arrive by air get their first and lingering impressions of Miami. And a new report says we’re not making great impressions there.

The study last week in the Washington Post asked people to cite their favorite US airports. Although Miami International is one of the nation’s busiest airports, with more than 56 million passenger trips last year, it didn’t rank in the top 50 as a fan favorite. 

That’s shocking. And it gets worse. Four other Florida airports made the top 50 and we didn’t. The Post survey ranked Miami International in the second tier, putting it among the top 150 US airports but not in that top-tier 50.

The survey wasn’t scientific. It only asked 2,300 fliers what they liked. But that’s the point: where do people like to go? It’s like naming top beaches: it’s a user’s choice, not a scientific study. But where people like to go influences them more than any formal test could.

Miami International Airport is now at the takeoff point for $9 billion in vital upgrades that are going to take years. That valiant effort should benefit from careful study of passenger preferences as well as engineering expertise.

As work proceeds, passengers are going to continue to flood Miami International even though the first four months of 2025 saw a 1.34% decline from that period last year. So as the airport starts on major future upgrades, it must do what it can now to refresh the welcome mat.

The Washington Post’s survey is worth analysis to see which airports are most attractive to today’s passengers, and why.

Leading the nation’s 450 airports was Portland International, where skylights, soaring roofs and entering sunlight attract passengers, who enjoy local food flavors in restaurants at the same prices they would pay elsewhere and view works by local filmmakers in a 22-seat microcinema while they wait.

Miami International officials are already on the right flight path. As they revamp the oldest terminal, the Central Terminal, they plan to add natural lighting by raising the second-story roof. In April commissioners agreed to reconfigure dining by going from food at 46% of concession spaces to 63% to meet fliers’ tastes. The airport already has a local dining flavor.

In the national airport study, second-ranked Long Beach Airport turned a negative into a huge positive. That terminal was built in 1941, more than a decade before Miami’s aged and shabby Central Terminal. But Long Beach made it an Art Deco landmark, put sand in the courtyard to create a beach, added a log fire pit for use at night, and has passengers walking out onto the tarmac to board planes – and they love it. 

Miami’s Central Terminal upgrade, in an alternate concept, will take a modern rather than historic approach, and Miami is investing millions for clear view entry ramps into planes throughout the airport to give passengers a better boarding experience.

Others in the favorite five airports are Ronald Reagan Washington International, which features short walks to gates – walks in Miami terminals can seem interminable – and local food options; Minneapolis-Saint Paul International, where a friendly staff makes up for ongoing renovations of the kind Miami will face; and Seattle Paine Field, which benefits from quick trips from curb to boarding gate.

Overall, the Washington Post study said, passengers most prize being able to get to an airport fast and then through it quickly. They like sunlight-filled spaces in terminals that have been recently renovated. They also look at quality and quality of dining and shopping options, on-time flights, and as the Post put it “cool things” like log fire pits and films at the airport.

In ranking airports, fliers did put four in Florida in the top 50. Tampa ranked 11th, Palm Beach 27th, Jacksonville 30th and Sarasota-Bradenton 42nd. Even New York’s maligned LaGuardia was 49th, well ahead of Miami International, which is too far behind to even have an individual ranking.

The condition of our airport is familiar to anyone who has tried to use its elevators or escalators and found the convenient ones out of order and the working ones a long walk away. The airport is spending hundreds of millions to replace or repair all of these, but like the walk to a working elevator it’s a long trip.  

Officials admit deficiencies. The airport’s current state “is not acceptable to our community, to myself, and the goal of this committee will be to take action to continue and expedite its modernization,” said Airport Committee Chair Kevin Marino Cabrera in January, before he became ambassador to Panama and was thus relegated to fly through Miami International on his visits to Miami.

Doubtless the county is throwing money at Miami International Airport’s deficiencies. But it must be smart money thrown at proper targets, and it has to be thrown fast. As the survey shows, our economic engine needs rapid maintenance.