Saturday 23 / November / 2024
Muscat: Airport Council International (ACI) has ranked both Muscat International Airport and Salalah Airport seventh and fourth globally. While Muscat airport got the recognition in the ‘15-25 million passengers’ category and Salalah Airport got the award in the under 2 million passengers category.
Oman Airports achieved its ambitious vision 2020 with the announcement by Airport Council International (ACI) that Muscat International Airport ranked 7th place worldwide in the 2019 Airport Council International (ACI) Best Airport Awards recognizing airports in the ‘15-25 million passengers’ category. In its turn, Salalah Airport continued its progress ranking 4th in the airport category for under 2 million passengers.
In 2015, Oman Airports sets its sight on being the top airports in the world as part of playing its role in the Sultanate’s overall renaissance. Consequently, the organization devised a strategy defining a clear vision of reaching Top 20 airports by 2020. Within the same year, Oman Airports adopted ACI’s ASQ program to be a measure of their services for both Muscat International Airport and Salalah Airport.
Airport Service Quality (ASQ) is ACI’s world’s leading and globally recognized airport passenger service and benchmarking program. The program measures passengers’ satisfaction across 34 key performance indicators via surveys. This includes passenger touchpoints such as Access to the terminal, Check-in Experience, Passport Control, Security, Airport Facilities and Environment. Passengers are asked to rate their experience on variety of features including ambience, cleanliness and customer experience.
The year 2016 served as a starting point for improvement with Muscat international Airport ranking 71. The transfer to the new terminal building in 2018 served as a launch pad for improvement in services. The year 2019 saw further progress and getting recognition as 7th by ACI.
The new Salalah Airport terminal was inaugurated in the year 2015 with the airport starting its ranking at 9th in the ASQ ranking category for under 2 million passengers per year. The airport saw substantial improvements every year. 2019 saw the airport ranking at 4 in the same category.
Oman Airports, stated that this success would not have been achieved without the efforts of all stakeholders involved in improving services in order to reach the goals set out within the vision and strategic plan of Oman Airports.
Despite global challenges in the aviation sector, both Muscat International Airport and Salalah Airport’s rankings are incentives for investing in the future. Oman Airports currently manages 7 airports in the Sultanate including Muscat International Airport, Salalah Airport, Suhar Airport, Duqm Airport, Qarn Alam Airport, Marmul Airport and Fahud airport.
