19.2.11

Our airports....

The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport has been rated second best in the 15-25 million passengers per annum (mppa) category in a global survey. This is a substantial improvement from its previous rank of 12 in the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards of the Airports Council International (ACI), but does not mean it has joined big leaguers like Paris’s Charles de Gaulle, London’s Heathrow and New York’s JFK airports. The number one slot in the 15-25 mppa category went to Seoul’s Gimpo Airport. Besides Mumbai, the other Indian airports to feature in the survey are Delhi (fourth best in the 25-40 mmpa category) and Hyderabad (retained the top rank for a second consecutive time in the 5-10 mppa category). ACI monitors member airports around the world four times a year. Its inspectors rate everything from an airport’s flight information screens to check-in process to sanitary standards. The ASQ survey is based on customer feedback about the experience at an airport from the moment of arrival to the time of boarding an aircraft and from the time of deboarding a flight to that of reaching the departure gate. For the present edition, over 300,000 passengers were interviewed. ACI is considered as the “voice of the world’s airports” and has 575 members operating over 1,600 airports in 179 countries and territories. Its survey took into account 153 airports, including six from India. This year, the Mumbai airport is expected to cross over to the 25-40 mmpa category. G V Sanjay Reddy, managing director, Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd, said: “We are both happy and proud… It will be our endeavour to maintain and ensure delivery of the highest standards of service at all times.” In the 25-40 mmpa category, the top spot went to Seoul’s Incheon Airport, followed by Singapore’s Changi and Shanghai's Pudong airports.

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