Travel preferences are a very personal thing. Some people don't mind driving two hours out of their way if it means a cheaper ticket. For others, getting in and out quickly is the most important thing.
Today, Skytrax, a London-based airline and airport passenger research firm, will release the results of an annual survey that ranks the world's best airports. We are presenting the data in detail here on Forbes.com.
Skytrax does not measure elements like on-time performance, lost baggage or customer complaints. Rather, the survey (which contains more than 5.5 million responses) asks passengers about 31 criteria, including airport access, public transit availability, terminal comfort, ambience and cleanliness, immigration wait times and service, terminal signage, friendliness and language skills of airport staff, ease of connections, entertainment, shopping and dining options, and Internet options.
Asia's airports dominate the rankings, which Skytrax says is no surprise given that its airports benefit from 21st-century facilities. Perhaps not surprising, no U.S. airports cracked the top ten. In fact, they barely cracked the top 20. Minneapolis-St. Paul came in a No. 20 worldwide and No. 1 in North America, based on the aforementioned criteria.
Service at U.S. airports has fallen along with that of the carriers. Earlier this week, the annual Airline Quality Rating survey showed that service had deteriorated at most of the major U.S. carriers, with AMR's American Airlines and Delta Air Lines in the bottom half of the ranking. These and other carriers have cut well over 100,000 jobs even as passenger levels are up.
Two of the more financially stable airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines, came in at Nos. 1 and 3, respectively.
