LONDON, 8 August 2007 - Hong Kong International Airport has been named best airport in the world, in the worldwide passenger survey results released today by Skytrax. For the first time in the history of this World Airport Survey, second place was tied and is awarded jointly to Seoul Incheon and Singapore Changi airports. "We congratulate the Award winning airports, whose standards of customer service have received a very clear vote of passenger confidence and satisfaction" said Skytrax CEO, Mr Edward Plaisted. "This year's study proved to be the closest fought traveller survey we have ever conducted. When the interviews closed and data analysis was run, we thought we had a tie for first place amongst the top 3 airports. With the scale of survey interviews for this year, such a result seemed almost impossible. After an extended period of result checks, Hong Kong emerged as overall winner, with 2nd position shared jointly by Seoul Incheon and Singapore Changi" added Plaisted.

"Hong Kong has been a frequent, former winner of the Best Airport title, and their return to the top this year is testament to the quality of service being delivered across their front-line staff areas, together with the more functional aspects of an airport that depend upon delivering efficiency and consistency" said Plaisted.

"This year in particular, our heartfelt congratulations go to Seoul Incheon and Singapore Changi who share 2nd place. It was very much a case of a 'photo finish' to determine the top 3 airports, and that is why Seoul and Singapore should be proud of their global achievement in the 2007 results."

Top of passenger priorities in this survey were general ease of airport usage and waiting times. "Travellers expect security processing to incur some delays" said Plaisted, "but are disappointed - often annoyed - if the security facilities are inadequate. Waiting in line for 30 minutes to find only half available security scanners open was a frequently stated complaint." The negative impact of these service aspects were a marked complaint that resulted in London Heathrow Airport position falling from 45th (2006) to 103rd in the 2007 results. Frankfurt was another marked faller, down to 94th from 48th (2006).

Passengers are spending more time in the airport environment nowadays, and many airports have reacted well to satisfying their needs. Whilst business travellers' look for speed and maximum time utilisation in the airport, it is leisure passengers that tend to make more use of, and enjoy an airport's facilities. "These are the people who notice how clean the washrooms are, how much seating is available, what prices are charged at food and beverage outlets, and how helpful the airport staff are."

In Europe, Munich remains the passengers' favourite airport, taking Best Airport Europe title and ranked 4th in the world. Zurich was another upward mover, 2nd in Europe and 5th globally (2006-8th, 2005-15th).

Vancouver is named Best Airport North America, and in 9th place worldwide, is the only N American airport to feature in the top 10.

The air traveller survey is conducted annually by aviation research organisation, Skytrax, and culminates in the announcement of the World Airport Awards.

The survey is based on more than 7.8 million detailed passenger surveys, covering over 170 airports, and conducted over an 11 month period throughout the world.

Final passenger judging covers over 40 categories of product and service quality - items such as terminal cleanliness, staff efficiency and courtesy, terminal signage and walking distances, as well as features like shopping, dining options, internet services. Security processing and immigration waiting times were also a constituent factor of the survey.

Press and Media enquiries should be directed to:

Mr Peter Miller
Director Marketing - SKYTRAX
Email :  miller@airlinequality.com


Further information     2007 World Airport Awards