For travellers making connecting flights, an airport’s size and number of destinations can matter less than how quickly passengers can move between gates. A data study of the 50 largest US airports has ranked Denver International Airport the worst for connections, while frequent travellers have also singled out London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Paris-Charles de Gaulle for difficult transit experiences.
Josh Koebert, a data scientist and researcher for Travel Bulletin, assessed airports according to “walkability” and “connection”. His calculations measured walking distances and total travel times between points, including train and shuttle journeys, as well as distances such as the longest route between two gates and between security checkpoints and the farthest gates.
Denver scored 10.9 out of 50 for walkability and 14.1 for connections. Richmond International Airport in Virginia, by comparison, scored 46.8 and 47.8. At Denver, the longest journey between two gates takes 34 minutes, including the underground train, while travelling through an average concourse takes 16 minutes.
“Denver is just way too spread out. It has huge distances between gates,” Koebert said. “The design is not built for convenience. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere.”
Brett Snyder, founder of travel adviser Cranky Concierge, praised Denver’s mountain scenery but was critical of its internal arrangements. “Inside it’s ugly, and they have train problems and you can’t walk between the terminals,” he said.
The problems extend beyond Denver. Snyder described Miami International as feeling like “absolute chaos at all times” and said Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, despite changes intended to improve connections, still involved long distances. The addition of another terminal, he said, would mean another stop on the airport’s train system.
AirHelp’s Summer 2026 Disruption Report also identified Dallas among airports with some of the highest missed-connection scores worldwide. Chicago O’Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta performed similarly poorly on that measure, despite Atlanta recording strong on-time performance during the summer. “The lesson for travelers is that a good overall disruption rate doesn’t automatically mean an easy connection,” said Erika Josefsson, a passenger rights expert at AirHelp. “It depends more on how much time you’re actually given to make it.”
International connections can add further complications, including passport control, security checkpoints, eGates, foreign-language signage and systems that require human assistance. London Heathrow has become a particular source of frustration for some frequent travellers. Ramsey Qubein, a Charlotte-based travel journalist who flies about 400,000 miles a year, said he now actively avoids the airport because of secondary security screening and terminal transfers. “If you have to change terminals, two hours is almost always necessary,” he said.
Frankfurt has also attracted criticism for its bus gates and tight connection schedules. Scott Laird, a frequent traveller and freelance writer, said Lufthansa sometimes schedules hour-long connections that depend heavily on “magical thinking”. At Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Flighty travel expert Katy Nastro said unclear signage nearly caused her to miss a flight after she mistook a departure area for a blocked-off section.
Travellers can reduce the risk by choosing airports where terminals remain connected behind security, researching construction alerts and allowing longer layovers. John DiScala, known as Johnny Jet, cited Los Angeles International Airport as easier to navigate than New York’s John F Kennedy International because passengers can walk between terminals while remaining within the secure area.
John Koebert recommends checking official airport maps before landing and planning the gate-to-gate route in advance. “They’ll even label which airlines fly out of these concourses,” he said.
