Mumbai, March 7: Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) and Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) have been jointly rated as the World’s Best Airport for customer experience in the 40 million passengers category at the prestigious Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards 2017. Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) is operated by GVK MIAL, and Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) is operated by GMR-led consortium respectively. The ratings were announced by Airports Council International (ACI) on Tuesday.

The positive news is that both the airports improved their performance on ASQ parameters. Talking about past rating, In 2016, Seoul’s Incheon International Airport had achieved the first place, and Mumbai and Delhi had come a joint second place along with Singapore International Airport. In the 2017 ratings in the 40 million passengers category, Mumbai and Delhi airports beat China's Beijing Airport and Shanghai Pelang Airport. Both the Chinese airports came a joint second. The third place in the 40 million passengers category was bagged by Taipei Taoyuan Airport.

The award was declared by ACI’s Airport Service Quality survey which is conducted among millions of passengers. The passengers surveyed included passengers across international airports and their feedback was taken based  on 34 key performance indicators. Hyderabad has received good news too. The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, has won the award for customer experience in the 5-15 million people passenger category(mppc). The Hyderabad airport is run by the GMR Group.

The Mumbai airport had created a new world record on June 20 for single-runway operations by handling 980 arrivals and departures in 24 hours. The record was previously held by London’s Gatwick airport.

GVK Reddy, Founder and Chairman, GVK, which operates and manages the Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA)said: “In 2007, when we had taken over the complete operations of the airport, the ASQ score was 3.53 and in ten years we have got it to hover around 4.99 out of a maximum 5. It is a testimony to the quality service provided in 2017 to over 46 million travellers by the 30,000-odd airport community members.”

It is surely a positive sign to see that the Mumbai and Delhi International Airports have fared well in the global rankings. Operating and ensuring the smooth run of airports with more than millions travelling is not an easy task. One hopes that the respective airports will keep up the good work and maintain their ratings. There is great scope for improvement in domestic airports in India and the managing authorities/government must work on making them efficient and effective as well.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 07, 2018 02:42 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).