In a recently conducted international survey, Airport Service Quality has ranked India’s major airports – Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi – as one of the world’s best in service quality. This development bodes well for the aviation industry and is likely to further cement India’s standing in the global aviation marketplace.
As per a recently conducted international survey, major Indian airports surpass international ones when it comes to the services provided. The survey was conducted by Airport Service Quality (ASQ) which is a part of the Airport Council International. The award ceremony was a much bigger event than the one held previously with more number of participants as well as award categories. Some of the criterion for adjudging the winners were waiting time in security lines, thorough security checks as well as the helpfulness of the airport staff.
The ASQ programme bases its awards after surveying passengers at the airport on the day of their travel itself. Overall 34 key performance indicators are used to decide the winners and the same survey is used across all the airports. It is the only programme to do such a survey on the day of the passenger’s travel. It delivers about 6,00,000 individual surveys across 84 countries in 41 languages. The industry database thus created is accessible to the other airports so that they may compare themselves with each other. Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, which also recently won the prestigious Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility in the aviation transport sector for 2016, and Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport along with Singapore’s Changi Airport were jointly declared the second-best airports in the world in the highest passenger handling capacity category whereas the Hyderabad International Airport was adjudged first in the 5-15 million passengers per annum category. According to the statistics, the Hyderabad airport has shown a consistent improvement in its score which was 4.4 in 2009 to being 4.9 in 2016.
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) CEO S.G.K. Kishore commented on the development, noting that it was a great achievement but there was lots to be done. “While the recognition has definitely made all of us proud, but we have still miles to go. Hyderabad Airport, running in to its 9th year of operations, is designed to cater to 12MPPA. It has witnessed a growth of more than 20 per cent in the last year with a passenger throughput of close to 15MPPA in CY 2016,” he was quoted as having said. “We soon plan to go for expansion of the airport, where it can enhance its capacity to meet 20 MPPA. As interim measures to manage the current traffic growth, reorientation of various passenger check points within the terminal is being tried and undertaken,” he added. Meanwhile, an official statement released from GMR which runs the Delhi Airport said, “This achievement marks a significant improvement from last year’s rating, where the airport was No. 1 in a smaller category of 25-40 million passengers per annum and No. 6 globally. Delhi Airport has now joined the elite club of international airports handling over 40 MPPA.” The release also claimed that the airport had seen a consistent rise in performance since the GMR led consortium took over operations in 2006. “ASQ ratings are a great opportunity for us to continuously refine our service quality levels. We are excited to be adjudged by ACI as globally no.2 in the highest category of 40 million and above passengers. Our focus has always been on enhancing customer’s experience. As we witness robust growth, we look forward to strong collaboration and support of airport stakeholders as well as our passengers. We are now geared to undertake the expansion works at Delhi Airport. IGIA Master Plan-2016 will further enhance the experience of our passengers and create new benchmark for the aviation community worldwide,” Prabhakara Rao, CEO- DIAL was quoted in a press release of the company.
