Airports can be pretty grimy places. Where else do people from all parts of the world converge with their belongings, grubby money, well-worn (and unwashed) clothing, well-travelled footwear … you get the point.
But despite being a potential magnet for germs, some airports do a commendable job in minimising the grime factor.
The 2023 Skytrax World Airport Awards recently named the globe’s cleanest airports, including Australia’s most hygienic hubs.
In its ranking, the awards considered the cleanliness of terminals, floors, seating, public areas and of course bathrooms.
Topping the Cleanest Airports category in Australia and the Pacific region was Gold Coast Airport. Not bad for a facility that pre-pandemic, recorded around 6.5 million passenger movements a year, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE).
GCI also won the award for Best Regional Airport in Australia and the Pacific.
Runner-up in the category was nearby hub, Brisbane Airport. Australia’s third busiest airport edged Fiji’s Nadi Airport to second spot.
Melbourne Airport and New Zealand gateway Auckland Airport rounded out the top five places, while Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Christchurch and Darwin airports completed the list of top ten cleanest airports in the region.
Globally, Tokyo’s Haneda Airport continued to lead the way in hygiene, being named the World’s Cleanest Airport once more.
Presenting the awards, Skytrax says that after the COVID-19 pandemic “the standards of airport cleanliness have become much more important to customers and airports maintaining these highest standards are well featured in the best airport cleanliness results”.
The World’s Top Airports
After finishing in third place last year, Singapore Changi Airport retook ownership of the World’s Top Airport title in the overall airport category.
“Changi Airport is honoured to be named World’s Best Airport for the 12th time,” Changi Airport Group CEO Lee Seow Hiang.
“To our passengers, we are deeply grateful for your vote of confidence. Your continued support encourages us to keep pursuing service excellence as we expand our offerings to redefine the Changi Experience.”
Finishing in second place was 2022 winner Doha Hamad Airport. Read our review of Hamad.
Tokyo Haneda (second last year), Seoul Incheon and Paris CDG rounded out the top five airports overall.
Aussie airports excel
Two Australian hubs finished among the top 25 airports in the world in 2023: Melbourne Airport (19th) and Brisbane Airport (23rd).
“Customer service is at the heart of what we do, and we’re incredibly proud of the work our team puts in to give our passengers the best experience they can,” Melbourne Airport CEO Lorie Argus said.
“We’ve also listened to our travellers and heard what they’ve told us about where we need to improve.
“For example, we’ve invested more than $40 million upgrading our toilets and rest rooms, which have gone from being one of our biggest cause of complaints to one of our biggest sources of pride.
“We’ve also removed two of our biggest passenger bottlenecks in Terminal 3 by linking it with Terminal 4, consolidating the security checkpoints and introducing the latest screening technology.”
Elsewhere, Sydney (49th), Gold Coast (54th), Perth (58th) and Adelaide (73rd) airports all placed in the top 100 hubs globally.
Australia/Pacific Cleanest Airports 2023
1 – Gold Coast
2 – Brisbane
3 – Nadi
4 – Melbourne
5 – Auckland
6 – Perth
7 – Sydney
8 – Adelaide
9 – Christchurch
10 – Darwin
World’s Cleanest Airports 2023
1- Tokyo Haneda
2- Singapore Changi
3- Doha Hamad
4- Centrair Nagoya
5- Tokyo Narita
6- Hong Kong
7- Seoul Incheon
8 – Helsinki-Vantaa
9 – Zurich
10 – Copenhagen
