The best (and worst) airports around the world

The best (and worst) airports around the world

• Russia’s Sheremetyevo International Airport is ranked number one
• Tenerife South Airport is rated the worst overall 

LONDON, UK, 2019-Sep-03 — /Travel PR News/ — 2019 is expected to set a new record for the number of scheduled air passengers. It’s estimated almost 4.6 billion will fly to their travel destinations, meaning the quality of an airport matters more than ever before, if airlines want to keep customers happy.

With these statistics in mind, luggage storage network, Stasher, has standardised the latest data available for key categories*  – including fewest delays, shortest distance to city centre, cost of airport parking and quality of restaurants – to rank airports around the world from best to worst:

Of the 106 airports analysed, Sheremetyevo International (6.50) – Russia’s busiest airport situated just outside Moscow – ranks in first position as the best airport in the world.

This result might be surprising, however Sheremetyevo received top scores for key categories including fewest delays (10) and parking costs (10). It also scores highly for the number of lounges it offers passengers (7.37) and airport hotel quality (7.06).

Sheremeteyevo is known for providing great choice and flexibility for flyers, offering plenty of connections to a vast network of domestic and international flights. It is also popular due to its fast public transport links to Moscow city centre. It is the only airport with less than 10 percent of flights delayed annually. Just 6 percent of flights were delayed for longer than 15 minutes.

London Heathrow (6.46) comes in second place. Classed as the seventh busiest airport in the world and the busiest in Europe, Heathrow airport has received a lot of financial investment in recent years. It also recently published a masterplan for a third runway and new terminal facilities.

It’s clearly paying off as Heathrow Terminal 5 was awarded the World’s Best Airport Terminal title this year and in this study it received top scores for number of lounges (10), quality of restaurants & food (8.64) and airport hotel quality (7.36).

Completing the top five is Piarco International in Trinidad & Tobago (6.45) in third place, followed by Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok (6.41) and Denmark’s Copenhagen airport (6.34).

Half of the bottom ten lowest scoring airports are in Europe, with Tenerife South (3.53), London Stansted (3.56) and Berlin Tegel (3.92) airports making up the bottom three.

Tenerife South Airport is ranked the worst airport in the world, receiving negative scores for the quality of its restaurants (0), its distance to the city centre (0.72) and high number of flight delays (4.95).

London Stansted receives the lowest score (0) for Google Reviews and is also impacted by severe delays. In fact, in 2018 an investigation revealed it to be worst UK airport for flight delays. Stansted blamed this on “adverse weather and air traffic control issues”.

The JFK International Airport in New York receives the lowest score (0) for cost of parking, demanding a staggering £206 for one week’s stay in its car park facilities. Zurich and Singapore Changi airport have the second and third most expensive airport parking in the world.

Commenting on the findings, Stasher’s Co-Founder and CCO Anthony Collias said:

“Our new study has produced some fascinating and unexpected results. It seems location alone isn’t a deciding factor for how good or bad an airport is, as both the top and bottom ten lists cover all four corners of the globe.
“Many travellers are in ‘holiday mode’ as soon as they arrive at the airport so it’s positive to see many are highly rated when it comes to passenger experience, while others have a lot of room for improvement, particularly increasing food quality, expanding the number of shops, reducing delays and capping parking costs”

To see the full data for each airport, please visit Stasher’s dedicated webpage here.