No offense to the Cincinnati airport, but....

You have to wonder about a survey of the world's top 100 airports that ranks Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport as the best in the U.S. - at an underwhelming No. 30 (topping the list is Singapore Changi, followed by Incheon International and Amsterdam Schiphol). The survey, which happened to come out on the same day that the L.A. City Council approved a modernization plan for LAX, provided more fodder to those who are disgusted and embarrassed about L.A.'s aging airport. Honestly, I don't get it. All right, we can all agree that LAX is not a showplace and that arriving from overseas is often a serious exercise in patience. But for the most part the place is serviceable and relatively convenient to L.A.'s population centers. Not to state the obvious, but airports are not beach resorts - the objective is to get out of them as quickly as possible. LAX has an enviable on-time record, fares that are typically lower than other major airports, and service to all corners of the globe, frequently nonstop. That doesn't seem like such a bad deal, considering how many travelers pass through the place each day (by the way, LAX didn't even make it on the list of top 100 airports). From Slate's Matthew Yglesias:

Peer into the methodology, and you'll see that the World Airport Rankings is based on a survey that doesn't appear to be particularly rigorous or scientific in its sampling. But even if SkyTrax does have a valid statistical sample of people who pass through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport and a valid sample of people who pass through Copenhagen Airport and a valid sample of people who pass through Singapore Airport, they still end up comparing apples to oranges. What if Asian air travelers are systematically more upbeat about the experience than North American ones, perhaps because faster-growing and recently poor Asia isn't so jaded about the miracle of flight? Would it shock you if I were to hypothesize that Midwesterners are less whiny than than folks living in the Northeast and that may help account for Cincinnati's high ratings?