Four Florida airports ranked among most stressful during holiday travel season

There’s no doubt that traveling during the holiday season can be stressful, with thousands of passengers packing airports waiting for their flight.

That’s especially true for those traveling in and out of Florida during the holidays.

According to a new study of the most-stressful U.S. airports during the holiday travel season by InsureMyTrip Research, a Rhode Island-based authority on travel insurance, four Sunshine State airports are among the 20 worst when it comes to the likelihood of having a flight canceled based on previously reported data for this year.

Among those, Tampa International Airport was 19th, with 1,274 departing flight cancellations in 2017.

Orlando (eighth with 2,510 cancellations), Fort Lauderdale (ninth with 2,371) and Miami (14th with 1,695) also made the list.

Have a connecting flight in Atlanta? That’s where the stress level could go to a new level.

Ranking first in the study was Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport with 3,918 cancellations, and that was before the approximately 1,000 canceled flights caused by Sunday’s massive power outage.

Rounding out the top 5 most-stressful airports were Chicago’s O’Hare International (3,505 departing flight cancellations), Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental (3,481), San Francisco International (3,057) and New York’s LaGuardia (2,886).

Not surprisingly, weather was the main culprit for cancellations or delays, with 45,008 flights affected. Air carrier (16,928) and national aviation system (13,725) issues were other major reasons for cancellations.

This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 11:08 AM with the headline "Four Florida airports ranked among most stressful during holiday travel season."