The Long Beach Airport is, yet again, one of the best. It ranked at #2 on the Washington Post’s Best 50 airports in the U.S.
And that is, in large part, thanks to its design and old-school charm. The airport’s open-air concourse evokes everything about the Long Beach lifestyle. Brilliantly thought out, the space is more like an escape than home to an in-and-out for busy travelers and aircrafts. And that is partly thanks to its landscape design from Meléndrez and an architectual upgrade from Studio One Eleven.
Take, for example, its use of native plants. The giant beds of Agaves are, according to the landscape architect, reflective of the sea. Meanwhile, the California Fan Palms? They recall the iconic skyline of coastal esplanades. Even its spots of lush greenery are meant to evoke the wetlands. Or take the furniture, wooden benches resemble palettes of stacked lumber, designed to remind travelers of the cargo transported at the City’s coastal dockyards. And the wooden walkway that connects the two concourses? It is a nostalgic nod toward the days when wooden piers and boardwalks dominated the Long Beach social scene (and also reminds locals of what The Pike used to be).
Designed by Studio One Eleven—just recently scoring a national accolade of its own—principal Alan Pullman said, “Taking advantage of historic architecture and great weather, our firm’s design includes generous outdoor plazas and gardens, plentiful landscaping, and connections to local culture and businesses not found in most airports. We always intentionally design to prioritize human experience, and we’re thrilled to see this project recognized as one of the best in the U.S.”
This is not Long Beach Airport’s first outing as the best of something.
The Long Beach Airport has long been one of the best since completing its upgraded concourse debuted in 2012.
It was California Transportation Foundation’s Aviation Project of the Year in 2013. And it was noted as one of the most beautiful airports in the world by the BBC in 2014. It was honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 2014. Nearly every year Condè Nast released their best and worst airports, LGB would always be featured as one of the best. USA Today named it one of the best in the nation in 2016.
Make no mistake, Long Beach: we have one of the coolest flight operations in our back yard.
How were the airports ranked?
The WaPo’s methodology focused on six key aspects, on top of “collecting data on 450-plus U.S. airports with at least 1,000 passenger departures in 2024 and analyzing feedback from more than 2,300 readers to identify your priorities.”
- Reader nominations “made up a major part of the score. We adjusted them so that the rankings wouldn’t skew toward places with the most Washington Post readers.”
- WaPo used TravelTime, “a location service that can measure distance in terms of time, to calculate how long it would take you to reach each airport on public transit. For drivers, we also used Mapbox’s location services to measure how far you could get to or from the airport amid weekday afternoon traffic and roughly how much public parking we could find within a half-mile of the airport.”
- For the top 50, the publication counted how many gates an airport had, relative to their 2024 passenger volume. For all airports, they also “considered TSA complaints (overall and on a per-passenger basis) that cite long wait times, screening challenges and other obstacles. With the help of the airport analytics experts at Cirium, who also helped with passenger departure numbers, we also considered the percentage of empty seats per flight, another indicator of a less-crowded terminal.”
- They “worked with Yelp to measure both the sheer quantity of five-star reviews given to all restaurants and shops in the airport, as well as their quality—at least as it’s expressed by Yelp’s five-star scale.”
- Using Cirium, they “measured the share of an airport’s flights that arrived on time. It wasn’t the top priority in your nominations, but it was a useful tiebreaker.”
- In reader nominations, they “often mentioned a tough-to-quantify quirk that gave your favorite airport a bit of humanity or personality.”
So what, exactly, did the Washington Post say about the Long Beach Airport?
Here’s what the publication had to say verbatim about the Long Beach Airport being the second best, which sat below Portland (#1) and above Regan Washington National (#3):
Fresh air. Sand beneath your feet. Palm trees. Yes, all at the airport: Travelers adore the courtyard that brings the beach to the airfield. There’s even a long fire pit if the nights get chilly. One reader calls it their “airport oasis.” Love being outside? Great, because you’ll walk out onto the tarmac to board your flight.
With just 11 gates and three airlines, Long Beach is simple to navigate and quick to get in and out of – a huge plus for passengers who choose it over bustling Los Angeles International. America’s self-proclaimed “coolest airport” rolls out the welcome mat even to non-passengers with extras like a free summer concert series and shaded viewing space for plane spotters. Food options are limited by the airport’s size, but most are smaller versions of community offerings, like a wine bar, a taco shop and a Greek restaurant. Eating outside gives “sidewalk cafe vibes,” a reader said.
