Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has not only been voted the best in Africa at the 2017 Skytrax World Airport Awards – but the airport which recently facilitated its highest volume of passengers in 2016, in excess of 10m passengers, has managed to climb three spots higher than last year from 22nd to 19th in the top 100 list.
The awards, held in Amsterdam are among the most prestigious accolades in the aviation industry – seeing Cape Town International Airport clinching 19th spot in The World’s Top 100 Airports – 2017.
Minister of Economic Opportunities in Western Cape, Alan Winde, congratulated CTIA, saying the Skytrax World Airport Awards are the benchmark for excellence in aviation.
Durban’s King Shaka retained the same ranking at 35th spot in the top 100 Airports list, and was also voted the best Regional airport in Africa.
King Shaka which also saw record breaking arrivals in 2016 was voted the 6th best Regional Airport for 2017, with Japan’s Centrair Nagoya clinching top Regional airport spot. Three of SA’s other regional airports also featured in the list, with East London ranked 2nd, Port Elizabeth ranked 3rd and Bloemfontein ranked 4th – boding well for domestic travel all round.
Johannesburg come in at 37th position in the top 100 airports list overall, slipping some seven spots when compared to last year’s ranking. But it ranks considerably better than the US’s equally busy JFK Airport, which came in at 67th position in this year’s list.
These awards are significant because they are based on customer satisfaction, as voted by travellers – The 2017 Awards are in fact based on 13.82 million airport survey questionnaires completed by 105 different nationalities of airline customers during the survey period.
“I would like to commend Deon Cloete and the CTIA team for the great work they are doing in contributing to the growth of the tourism sector,” says Winde.
According to Winde, the CTIA is also a partner in the Cape Town Air Access initiative, which has landed seven new routes and facilitated ten route expansions for our region, since its launch in 2015.
“This has increased capacity at CTIA by over 600 000 seats and generated over R3 billion in tourism spend for the Western Cape. In 2016, CTIA also achieved a major milestone when they reached the 10 million passenger per year mark. These trends speak to CTIA as a world-class airport, which is setting the standard for customer service,” says Winde.
