Airports'not sure if you've heard'are a mess. This is especially true this week, as a cascade of disasters (both preventable and not) have caused delays, outages, and long lines across the country. But the airport was a mess long before this week, and it will be long after. When I was first assigned to find the worst one in America, I felt for a minute like I'd been asked which Oreo flavor is the best, or which of my teeth is the toothiest: There are so many, and they all are. But certain airports are more hated than others. Reagan, near D.C., because it has the most delays of any major airport; one in three of its flights was late in 2025, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Dallas, because it is the biggest'flight-missingly, leg-destroyingly big, bigger than the island of Manhattan, with an incredible 1.5-mile distance between security and the farthest gate. Meanwhile, Hartsfield-Jackson, in Atlanta, is the world's busiest: On any given good day, more people than...
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