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Press Releases
10 March 2022

Travellers have spoken: the world’s best airports for customer experience revealed

Awards recognize airports who continued their commitment to the customer during the ongoing pandemic

Montreal, 10 March 2022 – Airports Council International (ACI) World has today revealed the recipients of this year’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards which celebrate and showcase the world’s best airports as voiced by travellers.

The COVID-19 pandemic continued to have a major impact on passenger traffic in 2021 with evolving health measures and a new set of expectations affecting how the airport experience is delivered and experienced. Despite the ongoing crisis, airports around the globe have continued to prioritize listening and adapting to the evolving needs of their customers through ASQ surveys.

From the data collected in 2021 from over 370,000 surveys, 110 awards have been won by 87 individual airports around the world. The award categories include Best Airports by Size (passengers per year) and Region, as well as Best Hygiene Measures by Region, of which there are 46 winners.

The new health and hygiene related questions added to the survey questionnaire in 2020 allow airports to better understand the customer response to new health measures related to COVID-19 and the corresponding award category recognizes airports that have successfully responded to them in the eyes of travellers.

The new hygiene category also complements ACI’s Airport Health Accreditation program, which helps airports align their health measures with global standards and currently includes more than 300 airports.

“After a second year of the pandemic, this year’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Award winners are especially reflective of customer experience leadership during the most challenging time in our sector’s history,” ACI World Director General Luis Felipe de Oliveira said. “We are exceedingly proud of their stellar leadership in delivering the very best customer experience.

“The basis of the ASQ surveys and the entire suite of solutions is continual learning and improvement to reach sustainable customer experience excellence. As the industry recovers, continuing to listen and adapt to travellers will be absolutely crucial to strengthening airports’ competitive advantage, non-aeronautical revenue, and ensuring the sustained recovery of the entire aviation ecosystem.”

For the second year, ACI World continues its long-term partnership with global travel technology company Amadeus to deliver the ASQ Awards. ACI and Amadeus will be celebrating the 2021 ASQ winners at an awards ceremony on 14 September 2022 in Krakow, Poland during the ASQ Forum & ACI Customer Experience Global Summit.

Elena Avila, EVP Airport IT & Airline Operations, Amadeus said: “There has never been a more important time for our industry to place the needs of passengers at the heart of everything we do. The ASQ Awards recognize airports that continue to make this crucial commitment despite the challenges our industry faces. We at Amadeus believe the passenger experience can be further transformed in the coming years through even closer airline and airport collaboration, underpinned by modern technologies like data analytics, common cloud infrastructure and biometrics.”

The Airport Service Quality program is the world’s leading airport customer experience measurement and benchmarking program. The ASQ Departures program measures passenger satisfaction across 34 key performance indicators. More than half of the world’s travellers pass through an ASQ airport.

ACI has continued to adapt the comprehensive quality control process to the ASQ Awards during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the highest quality when determining benchmarking and findings.

About ACI World

Airports Council International (ACI), the trade association of the world’s airports, was founded in 1991 with the objective of fostering cooperation among its member airports and other partners in world aviation, including the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Air Transport Association and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization. In representing the best interests of airports during key phases of policy development, ACI makes a significant contribution toward ensuring a global air transport system that is safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sustainable. As of January 2022, ACI serves 717 members, operating 1950 airports in 185 countries.

ACI’s ASQ program is the world’s leading airport customer experience measurement and benchmarking program. ASQ delivers 640,000 individual surveys per year (pre-COVID-19) in 50 languages across 91 countries.

About Amadeus

Travel powers progress. Amadeus powers travel. Amadeus’ solutions connect travellers to the journeys they want through travel agents, search engines, tour operators, airlines, airports, hotels, cars and railways.

We have developed our technology in partnership with the travel industry for over 30 years. We combine a deep understanding of how people travel with the ability to design and deliver the most complex, trusted, critical systems our customers need. We help connect over 1.6 billion people a year to local travel providers in over 190 countries.

We are one company, with a global mindset and a local presence wherever our customers need us.

Our purpose is to shape the future of travel. We are passionate in our pursuit of better technology that makes better journeys.

Amadeus is an IBEX 35 company, listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange under AMS.MC. The company has been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the last eight years.

To find out more about Amadeus, visit www.amadeus.com.

Media contacts

Adam Zampini
Director, Communications and Marketing
ACI World
Telephone: +1 514 373 1254
Email: mediarelations@aci.aero

Jennifer Fernandez
Corporate Communications
Amadeus
Telephone: +34 699 854 493
Email: jennifer.fernandez@amadeus.com