Miami International Airport is heading into the Thanksgiving Day travel season with the shortest average security wait time in Florida and the 6th-shortest average wait time in the U.S. at 10.4 minutes, according to a study of the busiest U.S. airports released last month by travel industry publication PlanetWare.
PlanetWare utilized iFly data to determine the average security wait time for more than 200 airports across the U.S. iFly monitors data on flight volume and when TSA is staffed at certain capacities to determine the estimated wait time by hour. To find an average, PlanetWare collected the estimated wait time for each airport from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. – one of the busiest times at airports – across seven days to find the highest average wait times for each location. Of those airports, only 171 provided enough data for a sufficient sample to be included in this study.
PlanetWare then used a list of the 31 U.S. airports with the most passengers on average each year to help narrow down the ranking and listed each airport from the longest to the shortest average wait time.
MIA earned the ranking while also being the fastest-growing mega airport in seat capacity (30 million annual passengers or more) in the U.S. since the pandemic, according to Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA Industry Metrics, Summer 2023, page 24). MIA set an annual record of 50.7 million passengers in 2022, up 10% over 2019, and is serving 2% more passengers in 2023 through September.
MIA was also ranked the best mega airport in Florida and 4th best among the busiest airports in the U.S. and Canada, according to the J.D. Power 2023 North America Airport Satisfaction StudySM released in September.