Odisha’s lone airport ranked 33rd in world; sixth in country
Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Mar 19:
The Biju Patnaik International Airport, the lone airport in Odisha, has been ranked 33rd worldwide and sixth best in India by Airport Services Quality (ASQ).
The ranking by ASQ is a benchmarking programme measuring passenger satisfaction while they are at the airport. It is conducted based on monthly survey inputs by passengers on 34 criteria including infrastructure, flight handling, facilities available for the visitors at the airport, security arrangements, ease of check-in and check-out, the lounge, shopping experience at the airport etc.
ASQ studied 254 airports for the study this year.
On a scale of 1 to 5, the Biju Patnaik International Airport managed to score 4.5.
In the worldwide rankings, while New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport was ranked fourth, Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport in Mumbai was ranked ninth, Hyderabad 19th, Kolkata 30th and Jaipur 31st.
In the domestic rankings, while IGI stood first, Mumbai was adjudged second, Hyderabad third, Kolkata fourth, Jaipur fifth and Bhubaneswar airport sixth.
“It is good news for us. We always strive to be the number one and are careful to provide services of international standard. We, however, haven’t received any official communication regarding the new ranking,” said Sharad Kumar, Director of Bhubaneswar Airport.
Bhubaneswar Airport handles 3 Lakh passengers a year on an average. While the passenger volume was 2,57,264 in 2013, it stood at 3,07,163 in 2012.
The Airport handles 38 flights to different destinations of the country. While Indigo operates 22 flights, Air India operates eight and Go Air another eight.
While the airport is yet to fly international flights, the new rank is expected to help attract international operators and visitors.
The annual Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards recognize and reward the best airports in the world according to ACI’s ASQ passenger satisfaction survey. Since its creation in 2006, the ASQ Survey has become the world’s leading airport passenger satisfaction benchmark with over 250 airports participating.
Comments are closed.