Summer is peak travel season - you'll also notice that at the world's airports. It almost seems as if hardly any flights are on time these days. The company AirHelp has set itself the task of helping passengers to get their rights without complications in the event of delays and flight cancellations. As such, the experts also have direct insight into the quality of airports worldwide. Every year, they use their data to determine the AirHelp Score. There are a total of 10 points to achieve, with the two best airports in 2024 achieving at least 8.5 points.

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How do you calculate the AirHelp Score?

The experts evaluated 239 airports in 69 countries. These are the busiest and most popular airports from over 4,000 airports worldwide. They collected data on punctuality for trips that took place between May 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024. Any flight was considered "on time" if it actually arrived within 15 minutes of the published arrival time. This factor accounts for 60 percent of the assessment.

Hamad International Airport, © Shutterstock

In addition, air travelers in more than 64 countries were asked about airport staff, waiting times, cleanliness and accessibility. In total, 17,550 individual reviews were collected. These customer opinions accounted for 20 percent of the result. A further 20 percent was made up of travelers' ratings of airport catering.

2024's best airports

From a global perspective, Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, took first place. With 8.52 points, it's only just ahead of Cape Town Airport. The latter secured 8.5 points. In third place is Chūbu Airport in Japan. It achieved 8.49 points. Three airports in Japan, two in Brazil and South Africa and one each in Qatar, Oman and the USA received top ratings. It's exciting that the best airport in 2023 only managed seventh place this year. This is the Mascat Airport in Oman. In last place in the overall ranking is Tunis-Carthage Airport (5.35 points).

Champions of punctuality

Dubai Airport, © Shutterstock

For most air travelers, the punctuality of their flights is far more important than the food at the airport. They are delighted with Cape Town Airport, Brasilia Airport and Panama-Tocumen Airport. They all received 8.6 points out of a possible 10 on the punctuality scale, closely followed by the two Japanese airports Chūbu and Osaka-Itami with 8.5 points each. "Better not" is the motto for punctuality fans at Tunis Airport. It scored a meagre 4.8 points.

Foodies at the airport

Dubai Airport, © Shutterstock

Fans of restaurants and stores at airports should preferably travel via Hamad International Airport and Dubai Airport. Both were able to impress in this category and emerge as unbeaten winners with 8.9 points. New Chitose in Japan, the airport Keflavik in Iceland and the two Indian airports Bengaluru and Chaudhary Charan Singh share second place in this category with 8.7 points each.

Read more: Here's the full ranking