In some airports, you could almost eat off the floor. At other hubs, you might be worried about even wearing your $50 sneakers for fear something unwanted might attach itself to your soles (and your soul?) and possess you. So which are the airports where the five-second rule could be more like a five-minute rule?
According to the recent World Airport Awards, the world’s cleanest airports for 2025 are where you might expect them to be: East Asia. Coming in as the world’s most spotless hub is Tokyo Haneda, which if you know anything about Japan shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.
Following the Japanese gateway was Singapore Changi, with Doha Hamad, Seoul Incheon and Hong Kong rounding out the top five cleanest airports. Interestingly, the top 10 in this award category comprised exactly the same airports as last year, albeit in a different order.
Closer to home, Adelaide Airport was named the cleanest in the Australia/Pacific region, while the South Australian hub (6th) and Brisbane Airport (10th) both finished among the top 10 cleanest airports in the world for up to 25 million passengers.
Top toilets
Meanwhile, for the first time, the World Airport Awards honoured the hubs that provide the best bathrooms around the world – and who hasn’t ever wondered, or indeed wished for that? Especially in bathrooms where toilets might as well be holes in the ground.
When it comes to the world’s Best Airport Washrooms for 2025, no one did it better than Singapore Changi. The Southeast Asian mega-hub also took out the award for World’s Best Airport overall. Read about that here.
Elsewhere, Tokyo Haneda placed second among the world’s best restrooms, ahead of Seoul Incheon, Bahrain and Hong Kong.
According to Skytrax, which presents the annual airport awards, the new toilet category “recognises the importance of these facilities and honours those airports delivering the highest standards”.
“As with all new awards, this is based on the first year on all assessments and feedback from Skytrax audit office, and has covered 235 airports where this was assessed in detail,” it states. “In future years this is incorporated into the customer survey in a more detailed manner”.
World’s Best Airport Washrooms 2025
- 1 Singapore Changi
- 2 Tokyo Haneda
- 3 Seoul Incheon
- 4 Bahrain
- 5 Hong Kong
- 6 Kansai
- 7 New Chitose
- 8 Tokyo Narita
- 9 Taiwan Taoyuan
- 10 Fukuoka
World’s Cleanest Airports 2025
- 1 Tokyo Haneda
- 2 Singapore Changi
- 3 Doha Hamad
- 4 Seoul Incheon
- 5 Hong Kong
- 6 Centrair Nagoya
- 7 Tokyo Narita
- 8 Kansai
- 9 Taiwan Taoyuan
- 10 Zurich
World’s Cleanest Airports 2025 – up to 25 million passengers
- 1 Bahrain
- 2 New Chitose
- 3 Centrair Nagoya
- 4 Osaka Itami
- 5 Helsinki-Vantaa
- 6 Adelaide
- 7 Cam Ranh
- 8 Quito
- 9 Houston Hobby
- 10 Brisbane
World’s Cleanest Airports 2025 – per region
- Asia: Tokyo Haneda
- Australia/Pacific: Adelaide
- China: Shanghai Hongqiao
- Europe: Zurich
- Middle East: Bahrain
- North America: Montréal
- South America: Quito
- Central Asia / CIS: Baku
- India & South Asia: Goa Manohar
- Central America & Caribbean: Juan Santamaría
Leaders of the pack
The annual Skytrax World Airport Awards took place in Madrid last week on the back of the largest global airport customer satisfaction survey.
Scoring the award for a record 13th time, Singapore Changi edged last year’s winner Hamad International Airport (Doha) to the prize. Following the top two are Tokyo International Airport (Haneda), Incheon International Airport (Seoul) and Narita International Airport (Tokyo).
Meanwhile, Melbourne Airport placed highest among Australia/Pacific hubs, finishing 16th in the World’s Best Airport category. Clearly, Tullamarine must be doing something right after picking up the Best Airports in Australia/Pacific award for the fifth time in six years.
