Great airports, happy passengers

Incheon Airport (South Korea) and Singapore Changi Airport tied in first place in ‘Best Airports by Size: Over 40 Million Passengers per Year’ category of the Airport Service Quality Awards (ASQ).

The ASQ awards, organized by the Airports Council International (ACI), are the result of more than 550,000 in-depth passenger surveys carried out last year at more than 300 airports across 80 countries worldwide. Passengers are asked for their opinions on dozens of key service indicators, such as airport access, check-in, security, airport facilities, food and beverage and retail.

Singapore’s Changi has topped the ASQ Awards, thanks to innovations such as two 24-hour movie theatres screening the latest blockbusters free of charge.

Airports are putting more money and effort into keeping travellers happy, while they are on the ground. There is more than just the criteria of ‘efficiency’, which comes into play when passengers choose an airport to start their trip or to change planes. It is the whole picture, from duty-free and restaurants to ambience, cleanliness, courtesy of staff, amenities, efficiency and more. Air travellers are expecting big things from the airports through which they travel, ACI claims.

It's not just the big international airport that are investing heavily. ASQ singled out six ‘smaller’ airports as showing the most improvement: Nairobi (Kenya); Denpasar (Indonesia), Istanbul (Turkey), Kingston (Jamaica), Damman (Saudi Arabia), Saskatoon, (Canada).

Further reading on edition.cnn.com

Image by Kanchi1979, via Wikimedia Commons