The World's Most Stressful Airports, Ranked

"Air travel has never been more accessible, yet the experience of moving through airports often feels more strained than it used to. Passenger numbers continue to climb, terminals are busier than ever, and delays have become a familiar part of modern travel. At the same time, expectations around efficiency and ease have only sharpened, making friction harder to ignore. This tension raises a simple question: Where does stress in air travel actually come from?"

"iSelect is an Australian comparison platform that specializes in consumer research across insurance, utilities, and financial services. Alongside its comparison tools, iSelect publishes data-led insight reports that analyze real-world consumer experiences using publicly available datasets. Its airport stress index focuses on operational performance rather than polling traveller sentiment, offering a comparative view of how major international airports function under pressure."

Passenger numbers continue to rise while terminals operate at higher occupancy, increasing the frequency of delays, cancellations, and longer processing times. Travel stress is driven primarily by everyday operational factors: airport capacity limits, accessibility constraints, and system performance under sustained pressure. A composite stress score compared major international hubs across flight delay and cancellation rates, average security wait times, processing capacity, and terminal congestion to identify consistently strained locations. The measure emphasizes operational performance rather than traveler sentiment, revealing a ranked list of the ten most stressful airports worldwide in 2026 where routine pressures most affect passenger experience.

Read at Conde Nast Traveler