Is PA airport trying to take thunder away from Newark NJ?

Whenever we talk about airports in and around New Jersey, one of the first places that might come to mind is Newark Liberty International Airport. And that might be for a few reasons.

For one, it's the largest airport in New Jersey. The second closest within the state is Atlantic City International Airport. Although big, it doesn't come close to the sheer size of Newark Liberty International.

Also, Newark is by far the busiest airport in the state. Another reason why some in New Jersey try to sometimes fly out of other locations if possible just to avoid the crowds.

Not only is it large with high volume, but it also doesn't do that great of a job taking care of its passengers. Newark International Liberty Airport constantly gets low rankings, which is reflected in the latest report according to jdpower.com.

Bill Doyle recently wrote about this study and the metrics as to how they came up with the rankings, so I'm not going to dive into that here (although it is very interesting how they came up with their figures).

Bill also goes into which airports ranked the best. And to be honest, it's really quite surprising who beat us out to be number one.

What I will tell you about this ranking is that Newark Liberty International Airport did not perform very well in customer satisfaction. I'll say it right now, is anybody really surprised by that?

What is surprising, however, is how Philadelphia International Airport ranked. Believe it or not, they also landed at the bottom.

That basically means the two busiest airports New Jersey relies on the most are in the last position for customer satisfaction for their respective categories. How lucky for us.

It's almost as if Philly is trying to take away the thunder from Newark's ranking as the airport with the worst customer service ratings in the area. Actually, as the worst overall.

So my question on all this is why? Why does almost everything surrounding New Jersey seem like it has to be on a race toward the bottom?

I've flown out of both airports before and can agree that Newark isn't the best when it comes to taking care of its customers. But I've never had an issue before with Philly.

In fact, the handful of times I have flown out of Philly the experience was quite smooth. Never once did I experience a hiccup there, although I'll admit, maybe I'm among the minority with that one (feel free to share your experiences at either airport in the comments).

It's a completely different story when it comes to my experiences at Newark. On the most recent trip I had there, they lost our luggage.

Eventually, we were able to figure out where the luggage ended up, which was nowhere near the intended pickup spot. But we had to search for it ourselves since the crew working there made an excuse not to help us when we asked about it.

After having no luck asking airport staff, I went to the line for travelers who needed assistance (which was quite long) while my wife was walking around with the kids. Eventually, she spotted the luggage at a drop-off point it shouldn't have been at.

So for Newark, the low grade is warranted. But for Philly to also land at the bottom is like saying both airports are in a fight to claim that failing grade.

Newark is still the worst when it comes to overall placement, but Philly only needs to fall a little bit more to catch them. So they don't have that far to go.

And who wins out of all this? Certainly not New Jersey. Add it to the list of what's not so great about living in The Garden State.

Click here to check out Bill Doyle's breakdown of all the statistics, including which airports were the best in customer satisfaction overall in the mega category.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.