Hamad International Airport (HIA) has been ranked the fourth best airport in the world at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2019, which took place on Wednesday during the Passenger Terminal Expo 2019 in London.
HIA has also once again been ranked as a five-star Airport and was honoured with the title of ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the fifth year in a row and ‘Best Staff Service in the Middle East’ for the fourth year in a row.
The awards recognise HIA’s innovative facilities, five-star customer service and state-of-the-art terminal which accommodates more than 30mn passengers annually, according to a statement.
The 2019 World Airport Awards by Skytrax are based on nominations from millions of passengers across more than 500 participating airports worldwide, making them one of largest passenger interaction survey awards in the world.
Commenting on the results of the Skytrax World Airport Awards, HIA chief operating officer engineer Badr Mohamed al-Meer, stated: “We are delighted with our progress and ranking at this year’s Skytrax Awards as we successfully moved up in our ranking to ‘Fourth Best Airport in the World’ while maintaining our five-star status and our titles as ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the fifth consecutive year and ‘Best Staff Service in the Middle East’ for the fourth consecutive year. We are committed to raising the bar when it comes to the airport experience and will continue to invest in our facilities, services and technologies that distinguish us as the airport of choice for millions of passengers around the world.”
The Skytrax 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.
The Skytrax World Airport Awards took place in parallel to The Passenger Terminal Expo & Conference 2019, the world’s largest annual airport exhibition and airport networking event of the year, where HIA delegates gave a series of addresses on airport planning and development, asset management, customer experience, and airport-airline sustainability collaboration.
HIA’s vice-president of Facilities Management, Michael McMillan, discussed asset management at HIA as a strategic approach rather than a formula, asserting that both a collective shift in beliefs and attitudes is needed and that asset management requires personal commitment as well as professional development.
Sujata Suri, HIA’s vice-president of Strategy & Customer Experience, chaired the panel discussion on customer service and passenger experience, while Ioannis Metsovitis, HIA’s vice-president of Operations, chaired the session on Airport Design, Planning & Development in the Middle East & Asia, also discussing the next phase of HIA’s highly-anticipated expansion plan.
The second phase of HIA’s expansion plan, launched in early 2019, will accommodate a capacity of 53mn passengers annually by 2022 as well as an increase in cargo capacity to 3mn tonnes per year. In addition to physical capacity enhancements, Metsovitis discussed the expected improvements in operational efficiency, including increased automation to allow 50% of passengers to perform self check-in, increase in airspace capacity, and optimised baggage handling processes. The expansion is a key part of Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup where the country will witness a large number of visitors to the global sporting event.
HIA is set to celebrate its 5-year anniversary this May.
