Cork Airport has been named top European airport in the under five million passengers category at a gala event held in Paris. But DAA sister airport Dublin was left empty-handed, and was beaten to the 25m-plus prize by Madrid Barajas Airport.
Angela Gittens, Director General, ACI, and Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director, Cork Airport, at the ACI Europe awards
The 13th Annual ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards were announced at the 27th ACI EUROPE General Assembly, Congress & Exhibition. ACI said that the judges valued Cork’s “improvement of the airport facilities and use of innovative technologies (e.g. advanced parking solution, queue measurement system) along with its investments in safety and staff recognition schemes. The airport’s success in attracting new routes, most notably the achievement of securing the first low cost Norwegian transatlantic service and its innovative approach to airlines customer service through the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ initiative, also impressed the jury.”
This years’ judging panel featured independent experts from the European Commission, European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), FlightGlobal and Air & Cosmos. ACI EUROPE counts over 500 airports in 45 European countries among its membership and this year’s competition saw a high level of entries in the competition in each category. Naples won the 5-10m passenger category, while Alicante-Elche won the 10-25m prize.
Madrid-Barajas won the prize for the biggest airports (25m-plus). Dublin Airport had been nominated for this category for the second year in a row, along with London Heathrow.
But Dublin was highly commended in the accessibility category – which it won last year – for “the continuing high quality of its accessibility services” for the disabled. The category was won by Larnaka International Airport.
