AirHelp has researched and ranked airports around the world – and, to nobodies surprise, Singapore’s Changi airport ranked he best, followed by Munich and Hong Kong. At the bottom of the barrel, you’ll find Kuwait Airport as the worst in the world, as well as Newark and London’s Gatwick and Stansted as well as Manchester!
The Results: Changi has been winning airport ranking for years. It offers so many services and options to spend time that you don’t mind a longer layover. And, having lived in Singapore, I can attest that it’s easy to use and the on-time record is great. Munich and Hong Kong have similarly high ratings for on-time performance and quality of service and frequently are found in the top 10 lists. I was personally surprised to see passenger sentiment for all three airports to be only between 4.8 and 6.1 – I’m not sure what else you’d want from these airports!
At the bottom of the rankings, you’ll find Kuwait as well as a number of UK airport and New York’s Newark airport. All of them suffer not only from poor services and on-time performance, but people just hate them. A 0.2 passenger sentiment for Newark tells you everything you need to know about people’s “Love” for the airport. Having traveled through Newark a few times, it’s not that surprising – many developing countries have better airports than that!
A few surprises in the list were the poor rating of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (at 9th worst) – an airport I use regularly – and Dubai (at 8th worst) the home of popular Emirates Airline.
How did they do it? AirHelp considered the on-time performance statistics of flights departing from the airport, the quality of service as rated by Skytrax Research, including facilities, check-in and security, as well as passenger sentiment expressed on Twitter.
They are taking a broad view and consider data and detailed research for on-time statistics and quality of service. Choosing Twitter for passenger sentiment wouldn’t be my first choice of source, but certainly provide a direction.
If you plan your travels, you have a choice of connecting airports and it’s worth considering. A long connection in a terrible airport can ruin your trip before you get to a destination – or destroy your relaxation on the way home. And a great airport can take a sting out of a low-cost carrier or tight seating in Economy class! I look at the airports I connect to, avoid the worst and look forward to the best. Check out the whole list at AirHelp!
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