ACI World has announced the top performing airports in the annual ACI Airport Service Quality (ASQ) passenger survey.

The top awards in the worldwide category want to Seoul Incheon International Airport, Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, and Hyderabad Rajiv Ghandi International Airport.

As a leading industry benchmarking tool, ASQ is designed to help participating airports to measure their improvement year on year, as well as to benchmark against their peers worldwide, within their region and in the same size category.

A reliable monitor of airport service, ASQ is used by many airports as one of the key performance indicators of the airport’s service.

ACI Director General Angela Gittens noted that “2009 was a tough year for airports worldwide.” Traffic numbers fell while competition rose.

For airports, it was a year of balancing tight budgets with high customer expectations for service excellence. The results of the year-long ASQ passenger survey help identify the leaders in meeting that challenge and demonstrate that airports have continued to invest and focus on customer service despite falling traffic numbers.

Gittens said: "All hail from ACI’s Asia-Pacific Region, a reflection of the region’s strong customer service culture, airport management commitment to service delivery and the high quality of modern passenger facilities at each of these airports."

“I congratulate Incheon for its singular performance, having garnered the top spot for five years running. This record is no accident, nor for the others who year after year continue to receive top honours. All have learned to focus on key performance factors that their passengers most appreciate."

"All demonstrate that they fully understand that what pleases a passenger today becomes tomorrow’s expectation, and that to stay at the top, an airport must continuously refresh its offer and introduce new innovations that continue to delight the passenger on subsequent trips."

"I look forward to the official awards ceremony which will take place 13 May 2010 at the ACI Asia Pacific Region’s Annual Conference in Sanya, Hainan, China, hosted by HNA Airport Group, a dynamic young company that embodies the enthusiastic development planning that characterizes this dynamic region.”

In addition to the worldwide category, top performers are named for each of the 6 regional categories and 5 traffic size categories.

- By region, top marks go to George, South Africa (Africa); Seoul Incheon, South Korea (Asia-Pacific); Keflavik, Iceland (Europe); Cancun, Mexico (Latin America-Caribbean); Tel Aviv, Israel (Middle East) and Austin, USA (North America).

- By the traffic size categories, first place recognition was won by Halifax, Canada (under 5 million), Hyderabad, India (5-15 million), Baltimore/Washington, USA (15-25 million), Seoul Incheon, South Korea (25-40 million) and Hong Kong, China (over 40 million).

ASQ Programme Director Craig Bradbrook said: "In addition to the top performing airports award, for 2009 we expanded the “Best Improvement Award” to cover each of the six regions. The awards recognize those airports having made the most progress in improving service quality." (EHL)