The World's Best and Worst Airports

Every year, a research organization named Skytrax surveys millions of passengers around the world to come up with the definitive list of the World’s Top Airports.   It’s ranking looks at 39 different airport services, based on reviews from over 11 million people travelling through 240 airports.    There’s dozens of categories for Most Improved, Low Cost, Continents, Shopping etc, but no Worst Airport, so I added that myself.

Changi Airport, Singapore

Clearly, Singapore understands that passengers want more from their airport experience than being herded into gates like cattle, frisked like terrorists, and fed stale overpriced sandwiches stuffed with mystery meat.   Changi’s free amenities (free being a defining factor) include internet, massage chairs, and a cinema to help pass the time during unexpected delays.  Pleasing aesthetics come in the form of waterfalls, green spaces, even a butterfly garden.   Clean, and efficient, Changi is currently rated the world’s best airport.

​Incheon International Airport, South Korea

South Korea has been competing with and often outpacing their Japanese neighbour’s economy, automobile industry, and airports too.    Incheon runs like a finely tuned, well oiled machine.    Surgically clean and easy to navigate, survey respondents made special mention of the friendly and helpful service, along with amenities like showers, where passengers can rent towels for just $2.    There’s an affordable transit hotel located in the airport itself too, and of course free internet, something most major US airports feel need to charge/fleece you for.   The survey awards points for immigration and customs, and Incheon leaps ahead here too, with line-ups whizzing through

Munich Airport, Germany

​Munich tops the list of Europe’s Best Airport, ranking 3rd overall in 2014.  Survey respondents enjoyed contrasting it to Frankfurt, which falls further down the list, although one would assume smaller airports are easier to manage.    How about free coffee or tea and a newspaper with your Bavarian sausage?   A nice touch appreciated by passengers travelling in economy.    The airport’s modern interior is elegant yet functional, good signage, with all the efficiency you’d expect from a German airport.

Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of only three 5-star rated airports, the other being Changi Singapore and Incheon in South Korea.   Is there a coincidence that the three highest rated airports are in Asia?   In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney makes a stereotype that one should always get in lines with Asian passengers, who are efficient and move quickly through the system.  No surprise then that Hong Kong is praised for its efficiency through the gate, check-in counters, even security.   It also got full marks for having views of the runways and planes, a great selection of food options, public transport, cleanliness and, being Hong Kong, excellent Duty Free shopping.

Zurich Airport

Leave it to the Swiss to make everything run like clockwork.  Zurich is prized for ambience and views, service, information and public transport to and from the airport.  Yes, apparently you can set your watch to the train schedules.   The self-service check in machines offer 15 languages, the toilets are spotless.   Bare in mind, when the signs say it will take you 12 minutes to walk to your gate, they mean it.

Vancouver International Airport, Canada

YVR proudly remains the Best Airport in North America, cracking the Skytrax Top 10 list dominated by Asian and European terminals.    I personally believe it belongs in the Top 3, but that might have something to do with the fact that YVR is my home airport, and is always a pleasure to return to.  Renovations for the Winter Olympics helped create a spectacular bright space, complete with First Nations Art, water ponds, and new, reasonably priced restaurants.  I feel a great deal of pride watching passengers ogle at the giant fish tank, with its luminous floating jellyfish, or the landmark Bill Reid sculpture in the Departures Hall.    Free internet all around, and massive kudos for free baggage carts, in contrast to other major North American airports that feel compelled to nickel and dime passengers at every opportunity.  ​

My Worst Airport Experiences

Africa’s three best airports are located in South Africa, still benefitting from renovations for the World Cup in 2010.  My least fond airport memories lie elsewhere on the continent.  In Addis Ababa, I waited two hours for my bags to show up, with no food, rank washrooms, and nobody knowing anything about nothing.  The worst check-in chaos I’ve experienced was in Dubai, where Nigerian passengers overloaded with commercial goods practically stampeded anyone in their way.    In Europe, I recall the hot Slovenian transfer shuttle that waited until the bus was jammed with passengers from the plane, and then drove ten metres across the maintenance road to the entrance gate.  Ten metres!  Security flagged me in Cairo for some reason, twice, and how could I forget Houston’s ridiculously long-winded double screening process, under the shadow of posters depicting the Twin Towers in flames? ​

Travel is stressful enough folks.  Give us somewhere clean to eat, freshen up, relax, and check our email without taking out a mortgage.  Is that too much to ask? ​