A new analysis from airport parking company Rightway Parking has ranked more than 50 major US airports by how stressful they are to use, combining flight delay rates, cancellation rates and the time it takes to reach the city centre. The verdict: America's most stress-inducing hubs are exactly the ones most travellers can't avoid, because they're the busiest gateways in the biggest cities.

Dallas/Fort Worth International comes out worst overall. Just over a quarter of its flights — 27.86 per cent — run late, and 2.76 per cent get cancelled outright. That's a lot of disruption for an airport that moved more than 7.38 million passengers in August alone. On a single recent Monday, flight tracker FlightAware logged 339 delays there. The one consolation: it's only a 26-minute drive from downtown Dallas.

Chicago's O'Hare International takes second place, with a 24.68 per cent delay rate and a 1.73 per cent cancellation rate, handling close to 1,300 daily direct flights. It also has the worst downtown transfer time in the top five — around 50 minutes — so a delayed arrival can snowball into a very long door-to-door day.

Ronald Reagan Washington National ranks third. Its delay rate of 24.69 per cent is essentially the same as O'Hare's, but its cancellation rate of 3.86 per cent is the highest of any airport in the top five. It's the quickest of the bunch to reach the city centre at just 16 minutes, and handled 2.17 million passengers in July. It also shares the capital with Washington Dulles, which lands ninth on the list — worth remembering when booking, as the two aren't interchangeable.

New York's JFK is fourth, with a 20.77 per cent delay rate, a 2.02 per cent cancellation rate and a 45-minute ride into Manhattan. New Yorkers get a double dose of stress: LaGuardia ranks sixth on the same list. Rounding out the top five is Philadelphia International, which actually posts worse numbers than JFK — 23.40 per cent delayed and 2.09 per cent cancelled — but redeems itself with a short 20-minute trip into town. On one recent Monday, Philadelphia saw 193 delays and seven cancellations.

For holidaymakers, the takeaway is less about avoiding these airports — for most trips to the US, that's simply not possible — and more about planning around them. If you're flying into or out of any of these hubs, padding your connection times, booking the first flight of the day, and factoring in transfer time to the city centre can save a lot of grief. Reagan's high cancellation rate, for example, suggests travel insurance or flexible tickets are worth considering in Washington. And when a city has two airports, like New York or Washington, checking which one your itinerary actually uses can make a real difference to your transfer time and your odds of disruption. Knowing the odds before you book is half the battle.