Asia Dominates Airline Awards
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Just as in past years, airports in East Asia dominated this year's prestigious Skytrax World Airport Awards. The award is based on the opinions of passengers and takes into account the extensive surveying that Skytrax performs every year. There were more than 8 million questionnaires completed by airport users over the past 12 months. Survey-takers were asked to rate the airport on 39 factors, covering every aspect from ticketing through take-off. The top spot this year went to Seoul's Incheon Airport. Hong Kong International took the second spot, while Singapore's Changi was third. These three airports have been trading the top three spots over the past five years.
Incheon managed to win despite the fact that it is one of Asia's busiest airports, the only major international airport in its country, and the main airport for the mammoth, densely populated Seoul-Incheon metro area. Like Hong Kong's new airport, Incheon is quite young. It opened in 2001, after it was decided that Gimpo Airport, the airport that was last upgraded during the 1988 Olympics, could no longer handle the amount of air traffic coming into Seoul.
When Incheon first opened, it was plagued by problems. For example, the baggage handling system did not work properly. However, within a year, these problems were all but forgotten and Incheon began earning high marks for its user-friendliness. The world began to take notice, and traffic began to increase further. The airport was upgraded to handle the increase in traffic brought by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
In Europe, Zurich and Munich airports took 4th and 5th place in the overall global ranking. Amsterdam took 8th place. All the other airports in the top ten were in East Asia.
In addition, most of the airlines on the other Skytrax award list, the World Airline Awards, were based in Asia, with Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific edging out Singapore Airlines to take top honors.
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