Travelers definitely don’t want to be stranded at these three U.S. airports

Sandy, the monster storm that put a freeze on the nation’s busiest airspace, stranded fliers across the country, especially in flood-damaged East Coast airports.

Unfortunately, many of those marooned travelers were stuck in airports with lousy reputations for food, comfort and entertainment.

In fact, the least desirable airports to be stuck in include Dulles International outside Washington, Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International and New York’s John F. Kennedy International, according to a new online survey by MissTravel, a dating website for frequent travelers.

The website surveyed 5,000 of its members, most of whom spend lots of time sitting in airports.

MissTravel spokeswoman Jennifer Gwynn said the survey gave Dulles, JFK and Hartfield-Jackson low marks for being crowded, with long lines for bathrooms and poor selections for food and entertainment.

In contrast, the survey concluded that the best airports to be stranded in were Dallas-Fort Worth International, Pittsburgh International, Austin-Bergstrom International in Texas and General Mitchell International in Milwaukee.

The top-ranking airports were cleaner and had more choices for places to shop and eat, Gwynn said. “If you are stuck there, there are lots of things to do,” she said.

She noted that the Milwaukee airport even has a ping-pong table, which was installed last summer as part of a special event. It became so popular that it was made a permanent fixture.

(c)2012 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services.