Hong Kong world’s best airport

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Hong Kong International Airport has been named Best Airport in the world, in the passenger survey results released on Monday by Skytrax. Despite being “only” rated in 5th place in the most-timely airport survey, Hong Kong received the prestigious award after Skytrax collected 8.2 million questionnaires completed by passengers over a 10-month time period. The London based aviation-research company rated the airports in more than 40 categories of product and service quality from check-in to departure, from arrivals to baggage collection - including terminal cleanliness, staff efficiency, staff courtesy, terminal signage, security processing, immigration and customers, walking distances, as well as features like shopping, dining options, internet services.

Second best airport went to last year’s winner, Singapore Changi airport followed by Seoul Incheon. Best European airport was Munich in 5th place and San Francisco took the place for the best ranked US airport but didn’t make it in the top ten. Here’s the that top ten:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore Changi
3. Seoul Incheon
4. Kuala Lumpur KLIA
5. Munich
6. Kansai
7. Copenhagen
8. Zurich
9. Helsinki
10. Cape Town

Note that we already wrote about Zurich and Copenhagen on some delay stories, but both airports rated fairly highly in our own surveys as well.

Also, make sure you check out the full list of the category winners - Brisbane for example received the award for the airport with the friendliest staff. Well, I guess that’s no surprise when you work in a city with one of the best climates and the most leisure attitude…

[Picture from Flickr]

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Surprise: Heathrow worst performing airport in Europe

What a surprise! According to a study published by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), London’s Heathrow airport is the worst performing airport in Europe:

AEA’s survey of its members’ punctuality at 27 major airports identifies London Heathrow as the most affected, with 44.1% of European departures subject to delays of 15 minutes or more – substantially higher than second-place Dublin with 33.0%, followed by Helsinki, Geneva and Frankfurt – all three of which are customarily to be found in the lower half of the delay table.

This surely comes as a huge surprise to all of us. Not really. Heathrow has long been troubled by lengthy delays many caused by its limited number of runways and overall capacity problems. According to the report 15.3 per cent of outgoing flights delays were caused by problems with airport and air traffic control, while a further 11.1 per cent was blamed on loading and handling issues.

This news couldn’t have come at a worse time for BAA, the owner of Heathrow airport as the Daily Mail writes

The latest figures will add further pressure on the Government to end BAA’s much-criticised monopoly on London’s major airports.

The least affected airport, according to the report, was Munich airport which we already featured in the top 10 most punctual airports worldwide.

(Picture by Flickr - some rights reserved)

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The 10 most on-time airports worldwide

Airport statistics are a fine thing as they give you an indication of where potential problems lie. Especially if you have the choice of different routes, it makes sense to take the on-time statistics of a particular airport into account when planning your travels.

So, which airport is the worlds most efficient one? According to a Forbes Travlerer article, the winning airport is Haneda airport in Tokyo (HND) with 90% of its arrivals and departures on-time. Never heard of Haneda? Me neither, but according to the article, the airport is the fourth busiest airport in the world primarily handling domestic traffic. It’s bigger sister airport, the well known Narita International (NRT) makes it on to the 2nd place. Well done, Japan!

Interestingly, 6 out of the 10 most on-time airports are located in Asia, only two from the US (Orlando and Houston) and one from Europe (Munich) make it into this elite group - maybe some of these airport managers should have a summer exchange class organized in Asia…

1. Haneda (HND), Tokyo, Japan - 90%
2. Narita International (NRT), Tokyo, Japan - 84.2%
3. Taiwan Taoyuan International, Taipei (TPE), Taiwan - 80.3%
4. Kingsford Smith International (SYD), Sydney, Australia - 80.1%
5. Hong Kong International (HKG), Hong Kong, Hong Kong - 79.7%
6. Soekarno-Hatta International (CGK), Jakarta, Indonesia  - 79.3%
7. Suvarnabhumi International (BKK), Bangkok, Thailand - 79.3%
8. Orlando International (MCO), Orlando, USA - 79.8%
9. Franz Josef Strauss Airport (MUC), Munich, Germany - 77.8%
10. George Bush International (IAH), Houston, USA - 77%

Read the full Forbes Traveler article here.

(Picture by Flickr)

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