Heathrow and Glasgow airports, both managed by Ferrovial, have been crowned at the ACI EUROPE Best Airport Awards, in the over 25 million passengers and the 5-10 million passengers a year categories.
Victory at the 11th Airport Council International EUROPE Best Airports Awards was the second time that Heathrow Airport had won the award for Best European Airport in the over 25 million passengers category, placing it ahead of airports such as Amsterdam and Paris.
This award was in recognition of the quality of the airport services and excellent facilities, as well as the transformation of Heathrow following the completion of the £11,000m investment programme carried out in recent years.
Furthermore, for the first time the London-based airport received the Eco-Innovation Award for its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. It thereby received recognition for its efforts in areas of energy efficiency (its emissions have fallen 16% over five years) as well as for other innovative initiatives it has undertaken, such as:
- Car-share scheme;
- Public transport system connecting passengers to the centre of London;
- Innovative ‘Sound Lab’ programme which carries out sound simulations to attempt to demonstrate the real impact for residents of the area following the future building of the third runway.
These two awards come in the wake of a record year for the airport, which saw 73.4m passengers pass through its gates, and in which passenger satisfaction levels have reached their highest levels.
John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive of Heathrow, emphasized that: “we are proud to receive these awards. We work hard every day to ensure improvement in passenger experience at our airports. Heathrow plays a hugely important role both as the front door to the UK and also by connecting the British market to markets across the globe. Our efforts to make this one of the best airports in the world have been recognised. Now we just need permission to expand our airport and be able to go forward improving our country’s connections with the rest of the world.”
This two-fold recognition joins the list of awards that Heathrow has received recently, which include the triple recognition as “Best airport in Western Europe”; “Best Airport for Shopping” for the sixth time running; “Best Airport Terminal” for Terminal 5 for the fourth time running at the Skytrax World Airport Awards; and Terminal 2 being crowned, along with Star Alliance, as “World’s Airport of the Year”, at the Air Transport World’s 41st Annual Airline Industry Achievement Awards.
Glasgow received the award in the 5-10 million passengers category
Furthermore, the ACI EUROPE Awards also recognised Glasgow Airport as one of the best in Europe in the 5-10 million passengers a year category, due to its quality of customer care, its facilities, the services it provides its passengers, security, community relations and its environmental commitment.
The ACI awards analyse and recognise efforts made by European airports in areas such as customer care, facilities, retail spaces, security, community relations, respect for the environment and operational excellence.
