My interest was piqued a couple of weeks ago when a friend, Lisa Round, texted me an image of the cover of the Kansas City Business Journal. Taking up most of the cover was a drawing of an airliner and this headline: “What’s next for KCI? And how it compares to America’s best-run airports”
Inside, the paper devoted seven and a half pages — more than 25 percent of the newspaper — to an assessment of the nation’s major airports, including KCI.
The assessment was a collaborative project done by various business journals in the American City Business Journals chain.
I don’t have a print or online subscription to the Biz Journal, so I bummed a copy from a neighbor who subscribes.
I was expecting a lot of insight, but overall I was disappointed. Essentially, it was a mishmash of statistics and graphics.
The most interesting and understandable part was a “report card” rating the convenience of major U.S. airports. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and D.C.’s Reagan National Airport got the only “A” ratings…KCI got a D-plus, which sounds about right to me.
The convenience rankings were based on factors such as parking, access to public transportation, concentration of retail stores and restaurants, and average wait time in security lines.
Surprising to me, Kansas City’s average security-line wait time was nearly 29 minutes. I can’t recall the last time I had a long wait to go through security; that part of KCI doesn’t bother me at all. At any rate, KCI’s the 29-minute average wait time was third worst, behind only the Washington Dulles and Buffalo Niagra airports.
One factor that wasn’t considered in the convenience rankings was distance from parking lots to gates or from curb to gates. That, of course, is the single biggest convenience factor Kansas City area residents are concerned with…As a result, the “convenience” ratings weren’t particularly relevant insofar as area residents’ perception of KCI.
Another factor that contributed to the mishmash was the identification of airports by their three-letter codes, such as MCI for Kansas City International and MDW for Midway in Chicago. Those codes are not always clear, as we all know, and they sowed confusion in several graphics.
For example, a graphic ranking the most profitable airports put New York’s JFK (clear enough) No. 1. Ranked No. 2 was an airport with the code EWR. Now, even though Patty and I flew to Europe last month out of Newark International Airport, I had to Google EWR to find out that is Newark’s code.
And, by the way, Newark (below) is a fantastic airport. It’s open, airy and inviting, and several dining areas provide tablets or iPads for every customer to order food and drinks.
The most confounding thing in the Biz Journal’s report, however, was a graphic listing the “Top 25 Airport Power Rankings.”
Factors considered in that category included enplanements per employee, revenue per employee and growth patterns in operating income, revenue and debt. Unfortunately, the chart was indecipherable. I found it impossible to go down the list of airports, then read across the graphic and try to figure out why San Jose was No. 1, Los Angeles was No. 2, San Antonio was No. 3, etc.
At any rate, KCI was ranked No. 11. Sounds good, I guess…For the record, San Jose International was ranked No. 1, but I couldn’t tell you why.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Interesting. I remember writing an article about KCI being named the most convenient airport by some publication. Of course, that was before 9/11.
I wonder where the security line waits came from. I just flew out out of KCI two weeks ago and there were three people ahead of me in the security line. And this was Southwest, the busiest carrier at KCI. I’ve never waited more than 10 minutes at KCI. Atlanta and Washington National are whole other issue. I’ve easily waited 30-45 minutes at both to go through security. I’ve had co-workers take an hour or more to go through security at National. I was just at Atlanta this past fall and it took 20-25 minutes – the fastest I’ve ever been through there.
There are also parts of Washington National I was through many times that made KCI look like the Taj Mahal. I always wonder what the real criteria of these types rankings are and that would suggest why what was presented was such a mishmash.
The only thing I can think of is that perhaps the wait time was significantly longer a couple of years ago and they’ve improved dramatically. Like I said, though — and this seems to be your experience, too — the wait times have never seemed very long. I guess if you start the clock from the time you get in line and stop it after you’ve put your shoes back on and reassembled all your stuff, it might be 15 to 20 minutes.
The Business Journals put a ton of collective time in this effort, and I appreciate that. I think each paper then tailored its coverage to its particular airport, and in the case of the KC Business Journal, they just didn’t break it down and focus it very well.
Take the stitches out … they sowed confusion…
Shoulda knowed better…
The data in that article are wrong. According to TSA the following is accurate for KCI.
Last month at MCI, 99.7 % of passengers waited less than 20 minutes.
The average wait time MCI for the month of February is 3 minutes in the standard lanes and 1.7 minutes in the precheck lanes.
We don’t have March average yet – but should have it in the next few days once we are in April.
The average annual wait time for MCI is 3.63 minutes (4.09 minutes in standard and 2.13 minutes in TSA Pre✓®).
This from Kevin Koster who got the data from his Congressman.
I went back to make sure I was accurately reflecting what the BJ reported, and I was…In the text and the convenience report card, the BJ reports an average TSA wait time at KCI of 28.8 minutes. It has an asterisk by the column headed “avg. TSA wait time (minutes),” and the footnote at the bottom says this:
“TSA wait times were based on multi-day averages posted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during non-holiday periods between Jan. 1 and March 1, 2017.”
So, my speculation about the Business Journals possibly using dated information was incorrect. At the same time, the average wait times you came up with, John, sound too short (I’m wondering if your times are just to get through the TSA check-in). As we’ve established, the BJ’s times seem way too long. This porridge just seems unsatisfactory all around.
My math mind says they got the decimal wrong and it should’ve been 2.88 minutes.
I suspect you’re correct in that we need to know how that wait time is defined. Is it when you check your bags and the proceed to security to check in (which wouldn’t make sense since that part of the process is handled by the airlines) and so then I would think that the wait time would be the point you get in line to go through the security check-in until you were passed through. I don’t know what else you would add to that, but from my own experiences at KCI 5 minutes or so would probably be an average.