AirHelp unveils the best and worst airports in 2024 AirHelp Score

• AirHelp ranks 239 airports from 69 countries

• The best airports in Europe are located in Norway, Spain and Iceland
  

Berlin – 9 July 2024 – AirHelp, the leading travel tech company supporting passengers with flight disruptions, has today released the first half of the 2024 AirHelp Score. Having helped passengers better plan their flights since 2015 with the AirHelp Score, this year’s airports and airlines rankings will be published separately to ensure passengers have access to the latest rankings for airports ahead of travelling this summer.

This year’s ranking includes 239 airports from 69 countries, with over 17,550 unique airport rankings from passengers. The data reveals that European airports fared poorly again this year with only eight airports in Europe making it into the top 50.

Europe's best airports are in Norway

Airports were evaluated in the categories of Punctuality, Customer Opinions, and Food & Shops.

With an overall score of 8.07 points, Norway’s Bergen Flesland Airport comes in 25th place, making it Europe's best airport in 2024. The continent’s second-best airport is also in Norway, with Bodø Airport scoring 8.06 points and rising an impressive 32 places from 59th in 2023 to 27th place this year.

Last year’s leading European airport, Bilbao Airport in Spain, is in third place having dropped by 8 positions from 21st to 29th place this year. The fourth-best airport in Europe, with a score of 8.02 points, is Reykjavik Keflavik Airport in Iceland, closely followed by Dortmund Airport in Germany in fifth place and 32nd overall, with 8.02 points.

Doha Hamad Airport comes out on top

The global ranking reveals that Doha Hamad Airport in Qatar is in first place as the world’s leading airport, with 8.52 points, having knocked last year’s leading airport, Muscat International Airport in Oman, down to 7th place. Cape Town Airport in South Africa comes in second, with an average of 8.5 points across the categories of punctuality, customer opinions and food & shops.

Airports in Japan take third and fourth place in this year’s ranking, with Nagoya Chubu Airport and Osaka Itami Airport scoring 8.49 and 8.46 points respectively. Finally, Brasília–Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek Airport in Brazil has dropped by 1 position this year to come in 5th place in the global ranking with 8.32 points.

Ranking by airport size

For the first time, AirHelp has added size categories to this year’s score to allow passengers to compare airports of the same size. The airports have been categorised by the number of flights they handled in the year. Looking at those who handled over 250,000 flights, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the United States comes out on top and in 15th place overall, with 8.20 points. This is closely followed by Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, both in the United States, with 8.20 and 8.18 points respectively.

In contrast, for airports that operated under 50,000 flights in 2024, Belém Val-de-Cans Airport in Brazil was the highest-ranking airport with 8.26 points at 9th place in the global ranking. The second-best performing small airport was Nagasaki Airport in Japan. Whilst this airport is a new entry for 2024, it scored an average of 8.20 points across the categories of punctuality, customer opinions and food & shops.

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp commented: "AirHelp’s mission is to educate passengers so that they can make informed decisions when they fly. Similarly to understanding their rights, passengers should know which airports offer the best services overall. Through the AirHelp Score, we can help passengers better predict what their experience will look like at different airports and what they can do if their flight gets delayed, cancelled or overbooked.”

Find out more about AirHelp’s Best Airport Rankings Worldwide.

About the AirHelp Score

The AirHelp Score is a ranking of the best and worst airlines and airports in the world. AirHelp has been publishing the AirHelp Score since 2015 (with a break during the pandemic) to help passengers better plan their flights. The Score allows passengers to see what treatment they can expect from airlines and airports based on data. To calculate the AirHelp Score, multiple data sources and factors are combined to give passengers a comprehensive picture of how an airline or airport is performing. The rating of airports is based on three factors: punctuality, customer opinions, and food and shops. Punctuality is the biggest factor at 60%. To determine the results, data from 1 May 2023 to 30 April 2024 was analysed and passengers were asked about their most recently used airports.

About AirHelp

AirHelp is a travel tech company tackling flight disruptions. Since 2013, it has won compensation for over 2.3 million passengers with a flight delay or cancellation. 6.5 million passengers have protected their flights with AirHelp+, and countless millions more benefit from the expert information freely available on airhelp.com.

#1 for flight compensation worldwide

With a network of 50 law firms in over 35 countries, innovative AI working behind the scenes, and a dedicated team of over 400 AirHelpers, AirHelp makes it easy for anyone travelling in the UK, EU, and beyond to claim up to €600 for flight delays and cancellations.