Asia dominates world’s best airport awards

Incheon International Airport has been named as the World’s Best Airport at the SkyTrax World Airport Awards, held at Passenger Terminal EXPO in Vienna.

Voted for by air travellers, this is the second time that Incheon International Airport has won the World’s Best Airport award, the last time in 2009.

“Looking across the entire survey, Incheon International Airport achieved top-5 finishes in eight out of ten eligible categories, which is a remarkable vote of confidence by airline travellers in standards being delivered at Incheon International Airport,” said Edward Plaisted, Chairman of SkyTrax.

Domination of the highest global airport rankings by airports across Asia is notable, with 6 of the top 10 positions going to Asian airports.

“Aside from the inherent benefit that many of these airports have in the most modern infrastructure and terminal facilities, the real differentiator that comes across in customer feedback is that the service culture across these Asian airports is very often at a much higher quality level, and most importantly delivers in a consistent manner,” added Plaisted.

Singapore Changi Airport finished in 2nd place in the main Airport of the Year survey, and achieved success in winning both Best Transit Airport and Best Leisure Airport awards.

“Changi continues to be popular with transit passengers with around 70% of survey votes coming from passengers transferring through the airport. The well thought out and quite unique leisure facilities including a swimming pool, open gardens and cinema continue to a be a driving force behind Changi’s success as one of the world’s leading transfer airports” said Edward Plaisted.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), the 8-time overall winner of the award secured 3rd place this year. There was consolation for HKIA in picking up the very competitive awards for Best Airport Dining and Best Airport Terminal Cleanliness.

“HKIA has ranked amongst the top-3 airports globally for the last 10-years and recognition for its dining and cleanliness standards clearly indicate that it continues to work hard to maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Passengers were particularly impressed with the variety of Asian and International dining options both landside and airside in the terminals” said Edward Plaisted.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport returned to the top-5 this year taking 4th place in the overall rankings and winning the award for Best Airport Europe.

“We offer our sincere congratulations to Amsterdam Schiphol and its management on another year of success. Consistent performance in both the leisure and transit airport categories indicates that Schiphol is considered the premier airport in Europe for transfer passengers. The open airside environment for passengers in transit was a repeated reason given by respondents voting in the survey” said SkyTrax.

Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) maintained a steady performance in this years awards, achieving 5th place in the global rankings. This consistency ensured that BCIA took the prize for Best Airport China and completed a hat-trick in the category, having also won the award in 2010 and 2011. There was additional success for BCIA who also won Best Airport Baggage Delivery.

Munich Airport was voted into 6th place in this years awards, and also won the title Best Airport Central Europe. There was further success as Munich also picked up the prestigious award for Best Airport Staff Europe.

Zurich Airport maintained 7th place in the global rankings being just 1 of just 3 airports in Europe making it into the top-10. Overall process efficiency and organisation are some of the key factors behind the consistent performance from Zurich at this years awards.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) rose in the global survey achieving 8th place this year. KLIA crowned this excellent performance by taking the prize for Best Airport Staff Service Asia.

Entering the top-10 for the first time Vancouver International Airport achieved 9th place in the global standings, and in the process picked up the award for Best Airport North America.

The 2012 top-10 global rankings is completed by Central Japan International Airport in Nagoya who also won the Best Regional Airport Asia award.