THE BEST AIRPORTS in Europe were awarded at a special ceremony in Athens last night – and our own Dublin Airport was named the most accessible airport in Europe.
The winners were named at the 12th Annual ACI Europe Best Airport Awards at a gala dinner hosted by Athens International Airport.
Over 500 airports in 45 European countries are members of ACI Europe.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the adoption of Regulation (EC) 1107/2006 on the rights of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility when travelling by air, ACI EUROPE partnered with the European Disability Forum (EDF) to present a new Airport Award: the Accessible Airport Award.
The Accessible Airport Award “aims to honour the best airport in Europe in terms of its level of accessibility as well as the range and the quality of the assistance services that it offers”.
It also intends to encourage other airports to continue their work on removing the barriers that people with disabilities and PRM still face when travelling by air.
The Accessible Airport Award went to Dublin Airport, with the judges saying that it ”excels in accessibility features and facilities, including adult changing places, two separate relief areas for guide dogs, fully accessible retail and catering areas alongside with service level agreements for assistance that exceed the standards of ECAC Doc 30.”
The judges also cited Dublin Airport’s website accessibility.
The highly commended airport for the Accessible Airport Award was Larnaca Airport ”for the positive travelling experience it gives to people with disabilities as well as for its great efforts to comply with accessibility standards”.
The first award, recognising airports in the under five million passenger category, went to Keflavik Airport in Iceland.
London City Airport was highly commended in the under five million passenger category, while the winner of the five to 10 million passenger category was Glasgow Airport. It was praised for the introduction of a real-time feedback model and the sharing of customer feedback on a weekly basis.
The highly commended airport in the five to 10 million passenger category was Naples Airport. This year’s award in the 10-25 million passenger category went to Brussels Airport for its work, including having the world’s first remote screening of cabin baggage on a large scale.
The highly commended airport in the 10-25 million passenger category was Edinburgh Airport.
In the category for airports with over 25 million passengers, this year’s Best Airport Award went to London Heathrow Airport. The highly commended airport in the over 25 million passenger category was Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport.
This year’s Eco-Innovation Award went to Avinor’s Oslo Airport.
The judges were particularly impressed by Oslo Airport’s project of setting up a regular supply of bio jetfuel to all the customer airlines, since January 2016, making it the first airport in the world to offer this service in such a way.
ACI Europe created a special Leader of the Year Award category this year, which was given to Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company:
for his extraordinary leadership and courage together with his remarkable decisiveness and wisdom in managing the aftermath of the terrorist attack at Brussels Airport on 22 March.
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