South Africa’s top 2 airports ranked among the best in the world
Summer travel may be well underway, but there’s still time to make better airport choices for the second half of the year.
On July 9, AirHelp Inc. released its 2024 score report ranking the world’s best and worst airports. The company, which secures compensation for air travellers after delays and cancellations, creates the rankings partially based on the claims it processes worldwide—along with outside sources tracking on-time performance, customer feedback and the quality of food and shopping options at 239 airports globally.
Punctual arrivals and departures represent 60% of each airport’s score.
The data analysis spans from May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024, and includes 17,550 airport ratings that were collected by surveying passengers from 64 countries about their most recently used airports.
Taking the crown this year is Hamad International Airport in Qatar—which ranked fifth in last year’s awards. Cape Town International Airport in South Africa and Chubu Centrair International Airport in Japan come in second and third place, respectively.
But the real surprise this year points to the US, with Salt Lake City International Airport cracking the top 10 list; the gateway to Utah’s epic skiing and numerous national parks ranked 8th in the world and best in the US.
The new SLC airport is a state-of-the-art facility that opened in September 2020 and has been seeing improvements ever since, with its final phase expected to be completed later in 2024.
The appearance of a US airport in the global top 10 is especially noteworthy, considering just three US airports made it on AirHelp’s top 50 global airports list in 2023: Minneapolis-St. Paul International (No. 13), Seattle-Tacoma International (No. 34) and Detroit Metropolitan Airport Wayne County (No. 38).
This time, 10 US airports are among the top 50, including Washington Dulles International (No. 11), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (No. 16), Nashville International (No. 18) and Phoenix Sky Harbor International (No. 21).
“Looking at the 2024 rankings, the U.S. has made strides, landing seven airports in the top thirty,” said Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, in an emailed statement. As airports restaff post-pandemic, the airport experience is improving for US-bound travellers, he added.
That’s reflected in the performance scores among the top 10 US airports, which show significant improvement over last year’s scores. On the 2023 list, the top-scoring US airport—Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP)—received a score of 8.15 (out of a maximum of 10 points). This year, six of the top 10 US airports received a higher score.
The 10 Best Airports in the World
- Hamad International Airport, Qatar (DOH)
- Cape Town International Airport, South Africa (CPT)
- Chubu Centrair International Airport, Nagoya, Japan (NGO)
- Osaka International Airport, Japan (ITM)
- Brasília-President Juscelino Kubitschek International Airport, Brazil (BSB)
- Johannesburg-OR Tambo International Airport, South Africa (JNB)
- Muscat International Airport, Oman (MCT)
- Salt Lake City International Airport, US (SLC)
- Val-de-Cans/Júlio Cezar Ribeiro International Airport, Belém, Brazil (BEL)
- Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan (NRT)
Read: The two South African airlines ranked among the best in the world
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