Doha, Qatar
15 March 2017
(HIA)

Hamad International Airport (HIA) was ranked Sixth Best Airport in the World by the 2017 Skytrax World Airport Awards, moving up four places from last year.

The ceremony that took place during the Passenger Terminal EXPO in Amsterdam, HIA was also awarded the ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ title for the third consecutive year and ‘Best Staff Service in the Middle East’ for the second consecutive year.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker said “We are delighted to congratulate our home and hub, HIA, on being ranked the Sixth Best Airport in the World by Skytrax. This ranking is testament to HIA’s continued commitment to delivering the highest standard of service to our passengers, and to exceeding their expectations on every level. It is even more notable to earn these prestigious awards as we significantly grow the number of passengers served at HIA year on year, to 37 million in 2016.”

Attending the awards, Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, Chief Operating Officer of Hamad International Airport said “It is a great honour that passengers voted our airport as one of the top six airports in world. Within the last four years we have climbed from the 75th position to the sixth position in the world airports ranking, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to continuously improve our services and facilities and to serve our customers’ needs.

“We were delighted to be classified as a Five-Star airport in January this year, after being audited by Skytrax, which elevated us into the elite category of top tier airports. We are now thrilled that our passengers have acknowledged our efforts through independently conducted passenger surveys.

“This is a result of HIA’s strategic investment in a bespoke research programme aiming at understanding who our passengers are and what are their expectations. It is our deep understanding of our customers, together with the strongest support from our staff and partners, as well as the State of Qatar, that enable us to deliver a top quality passenger experience at all times. These awards motivate us to aim even higher and are dedicated to the entire airport community. We pledge to continue improving our infrastructure and delivering an exceptional travel experience to all our passengers, who have graciously given us their vote of confidence.”

Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax said “This is the third consecutive year that Hamad International Airport has been named the Best Airport in the Middle East, and this combines with their jump in the global rating to be placed Number 6 in the world. For an airport that is less than three years old, this is truly a great achievement and underlines the excellent service and facilities that HIA provides to customers.”

The World Airport Awards are the most prestigious accolades for the airport industry, voted by customers in the largest annual global airport customer satisfaction survey. The survey and awards process is totally independent and free of any airport influence or interference in final results.

The World Airport Awards are based on 12.85 million customer nominations across 110 nationalities of air travellers, and include 410 airports worldwide.

The survey evaluates customer satisfaction across 39 key performance indicators for airport service and product - from check-in, arrivals, transfers, shopping, security and immigration, through to departure at the gate.