UK airports named among world’s ‘best’ – there’s a clear ‘north-south divide’

Three British airports have been named among the world’s best, but there is a clear north-south divide.

Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports were all named in the 2024 World Airport Awards list of the best 100 airports on the globe, but there was no place for any in the north of the country.

The highest ranking UK airport was Heathrow in 21s, which was followed by Gatwick in 48th and London City in 82nd.

Heathrow was praised for its wide range of amenities, efficient operation and good connections to London, with the airport aiming to finish higher up the table in the near future with an ambitious multi-billion pound expansion that includes a third runway and increased capacity. 

The top three on the list were Doha’s Hamad International Airport, renowned for its modern facilities and top-notch customer service, followed by Singapore Changi Airport, which regularly finishes high on the list and was praised for its brilliant leisure amenities and Seoul Incheon Airport, which was hailed for its spotless terminals and smooth transit experience. 

Luton and Stansted did not make the cut and were instead named in a list of the country’s worst experts by storage experts Bounce.

The list of the UK’s worst was topped by Manchester terminal one and three, while Birmingham and Edinburgh also scored poorly.

According to the list of British airports, northerners do have one airport they can trust, however, with Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport scoring 82 percent for customer satisfaction.

Another airport in the north of the UK receiving high praise is Inverness, which was named the best in Europe for customer service by the Airport Service Quality Awards.

It comes just days after chaos broke out at airports across the country due to a Border Force e-gate outage.

The gates went down at about 9am on Wednesday morning and only returned to action at midnight with passengers left queuing for hours.