So, is South Korea’s Incheon International or Singapore’s Changi the envy of the world? According to two major rankings for 2010, they’re both the world’s number one airport.
Airports Council International (ACI) came out with its annual Airport Service Quality awards last week, and named—for the sixth-straight year—Incheon Airport in Seoul as the best of the best.
ACI, a global trade representative of the world’s airports, compiled their 2010 rankings by tallying up 300,000 passenger surveys completed across 153 airports around the world. They were based on ‘customer feedback on a range of service delivery parameters that track the customer experience at an airport from the moment of arrival to the departure gate,’ including measures such as cleanliness, check-in efficiency and waiting area comfort. Summing up the results, ACI Programme Director Craig Bradbrook explained that the ‘top performing airports are those that deliver on the basics first—general ambience, cleanliness, check in efficiency, courtesy of staff, clear signage, availability of facilities, comfortable waiting areas—and then turn their attention to provision of other services.’
Following Incheon International in the top five are Singapore’s Changi, then Hong Kong International, Beijing Capital International and Shanghai Pudong International—all in Asia.
Meanwhile global airline review company Skytrax also revealed its own World’s Top 10 Airports ranking for 2010, and not unlike ACI’s, the majority of them are based in the Asia-Pacific. According to Skytrax, its survey this year was an ‘extremely competitive’ one that assessed (an impressive) 9.8 million completed survey interviews. Their results showed that while it was a very close race, Singapore’s Changi comes out slightly ahead of Incheon International, earning the title of 2010 World's Best Airport. Included in Skytrax’s top ten also are Hong Kong International, Munich and Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Amsterdam Schiphol, Beijing Capital International, Auckland Int'l and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport—placing seven of the ten in the Asia-Pacific region.
All this chimes with the conversation I just had with a friend in Britain who said that in contrast, London’s Heathrow feels like a bit of an embarrassment. She told me that there, ‘as a British national, I’m greeted on my return by chewing-gum covered carpets, lengthy queuing, surly staff and lost luggage. I’ve never got to baggage claim before my suitcase in Singapore, but when I re-enter London, I can guarantee my bag is on the wrong conveyor belt.’ She went on to suggest that Heathrow’s lack of effort to improve is simple, and political: ‘London’s clinging to its high-powered past and expecting status to be given automatically. Now Britain is unwilling to develop, because it feels that power and world status will automatically come to a formerly great country.’
Airports offer countries a great chance to make a strong first impression on tourists. It seems that airport operators in the West have a thing or two to learn from their Asian cousins.
Images: Incheon International Airport by Monica's Dad (top), Changi Airport by Schristia (bottom).
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William
I fully expect there to be thousands of comments on this article, most of them from people more interested in boasting about how many airports they’ve been to and how tough life is for the well-sated business executive.
Let me take a different view. Land. Airports use a lot of it. In big cities they have a fundamental problem. Do you build/use one closer to the city, which will invariably be hemmed in and have huge difficulties expanding the amount of land it uses, or start again and build your ideal airport far away in the middle of nowhere?
The top ten airports in the Skytrax ranking are Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong, Munich, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Amsterdam, Beijing, Auckland and Bangkok. Of these, Seoul, Hong Kong, KL, Beijing and Bangkok count as big cities. Hang on, aren’t these all in Asia?
But let’s look a bit more closely. Incheon airport is a hell of a long way from Seoul, as anyone who has visited the city will realise, and still lacks a full rail link. Thus nearly everyone ends up taking a very long bus ride.
KL airport, too, was built recently from scratch at a huge distance from its city, but at least has a reasonably good train. I haven’t been to the new Bangkok airport, but know that it, too, was built from scratch a huge distance from the city.
That leaves us with Hong Kong and Beijing (and for that matter, Singapore). What’s the common factor in all 3 cities? The government controls all the land, and so can do whatever the hell it likes, without worrying about other things getting in the way. Huge new airport? Tick. Weird design? Tick. Norman Foster? Gulp…
Travellers want convenience as much as they want a nice airport. It’s no use having an airside paradise if it takes 2 hours to get there. Non-democracies can simply close the old, closer airport down and force everyone to use the shiny new one far, far away. I’m thinking of you, Hong Kong, KL and Bangkok. At least in Seoul people are given the choice, and plenty still choose to use the old Gimpo for domestic flights – it’s just that much closer.
Think about other cities – everyone hates New York LaGuardia, but lots of people still use it. Better to be actually near New York. London Heathrow – case in point: it’s actually reasonably near London. Tokyo Haneda (which is actually not bad and has started running a few international flights) is a hell of a lot closer to Tokyo than Tokyo Narita (which is also a very poor airport). Osaka Itami is still used, despite the existence of the brand-new Kansai airport much further away on an artificial island.
So polls like these ones are still an irrelevance, unless they give proper weighting to the views of people who actually LIVE in the cities concerned. And, for that matter, to people who actually LIVE near the airports concerned – are they threatened with demolition as runways are extended, or are they able (eg in London and Tokyo) to take priority over these shiny white elephants?
Last comment: Beijing airport. Sure, it impresses visitors – it’s big, shiny, and not yet crowded. But that’s about it. Try transferring through it, or just using it regularly!
Ulara Nakagawa
Hi William,
Thank you for the comments on the topic. It seems like you have traveled extensively and have some great insight to share.
Ulara
Min
That was an enjoyable read. I never thought airports could be so interesting and reflective of power balances. Thanks again for a stimulating read ^^.
With that said, I find most airports to be more or less alike. I’ve traveled a bit, and to be honest I don’t find anything striking about any airport with the exception of Cairo, where the equipment must have been recycled from the 70s (it gave the entire experience a vintage feeling that I actually found charming). The all kind of run into each other in my mind…none of them are particularly memorable. And especially those is Asia…Chep Lak Kok, Changi, Incheon, etc…they might as well change their names and signs with each other and I would never know which is which since they’re all more or less identical to each other in design and concept.
Ulara Nakagawa
Hi Min,
Thanks for the interesting input. I haven’t heard that opinion before, that many Asian airports are interchangeable in terms of memorability. I think I still need to do some more ‘research’ myself!
Ulara