If you feel like you have been waiting longer to take off or arrive at Miami or Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airports, you are not alone.
A new report using federal Department of Transportation stats shows both major hubs saw worse delays in 2016 than during the previous year. The Global Gateway Alliance compiled the DOT numbers showing the percentage of departures and arrivals at the nation's 29 busiest airports.
"Our primary concern here at the airport is safety," said Greg Meyer with the Broward County Aviation Department, which oversees operations at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International. "We have to maintain a safe and secure facility but as far as airline on-time schedules, it's very hard for us to have any impact on that."
Miami International dropped from 20th to 22nd in the rankings when measuring on-time arrivals and from 24th to 25th for departures. MIA actually had more flights which were noted as departing on time, which is classified as within 15 minutes of the time slotted on tickets, but overall saw a greater increase in departure delays than on schedule arrivals for the year.
"On-time performance is determined by factors [including] the weather, the FAA (ground traffic and air space separation) and the airlines (aircraft, crew and flight schedule issues), not the airports themselves," said Miami-Dade Aviation Department Communications Director Greg Chin via email.
The survey also showed that almost 23% of all departures leaving FLL in 2016 were more than 15 minutes behind schedule, dropping the Broward airport from 14th in the 2015 rankings to 23rd last year. While arrival performance marginally improved compared to the year before, the airport's ranking fell compared to other hubs whose performance documented larger gains.
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Many of the delays are caused by issues outside of airport officials' control, including flights running behind schedule because of issues in other cities. New York City's three main airports all ranked among the worst in their on-time performance and for other airports getting a large share of flights from that market, the ripple effect drags their numbers down.
"We have more service there than any other airport in the country," Meyer said about the Big Apple. "So what happens there has an impact on us here as well."
While the airports work to make sure the airlines have everything they need to ensure smooth operations, ultimately many of the timing issues are the responsibilities of the air carriers themselves. In the meantime, projects are underway at both hubs to add more gates in order to reduce the possibility of a logjam of planes on the ground, including a three-year $651 million renovation project at Miami International.
Officials at FLL and Broward County Commissioners are also expanding in order to keep up with the growth of service there, including double-digit increases in the number of international flights at the airport over each of the last three years. The expanded south runway has been in service since late 2014 and construction continues on new concourses at Terminals 1 and 4 which will add more international gates.
(Photo credit: Joe Raedle)