News

For the fourth year in a row, an international travel has named Tocumen International Airport in Panama City as the top airport in Central America and the Caribbean.

Perhaps this is no surprise, as Tocumen has established itself as the regional hub for air traffic and is in the midst of a large-scale expansion, including a new terminal. But it’s still nice to see the airport receive recognition from the travel industry.

The annual airport awards are presented by Skytrax, an industry consultancy and research firm, and are considered the “largest, annual global airport customer satisfaction survey.” This year the Skytrax World Airport Awards were based on 13.82 million airport survey questionnaires completed by 105 different nationalities of airline customers during the survey period, July 2016 to Feb. 2017, covering 550 airports worldwide, according to the company. The survey evaluated traveler experiences across several areas, including “check-in, arrivals, transfers, shopping, security and immigration through to departure at the gate.”

Skytrax named Singapore’s Changi Airport as the top airport in the world, followed by Tokyo International Airport (Haneda); Incheon International Airport; Munich Airport and Hong Kong International Airport.

Overall, Tocumen was listed at 90th on the group’s Top 100, topping Shanghai, Brussels, Nice and Prague.

The group goes beyond top airports and gets into the details that make airports great, including the best airports for food. Their choice: Hong Kong. In fact, the Asia airports dominate the food category, with Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul following Hong Kong. Asia airports take six of the seven top spots, with Doha in Qatar in the fifth slot and London’s Heathrow coming in at eighth, the top European foodie airport.

The best airport for shopping was London’s Heathrow, followed by Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore. The world’s cleanest airport is Tokyo’s Haneda, followed by Seoul Inchon and Centrair Nagoya.