Tourism & Hospitality | Tuesday 24 January, 2017 3:03 am |

The Airport Council International (ACI) has ranked Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah as the second best airport in the Middle East for the second quarter of 2016.

The ACI evaluated the region’s top 10 airports, and the airport got 4.65 out of a possible five points that represent the satisfaction of travelers with the quality of services offered at international airports.

In the category of airports with annual capacities ranging from five to 15 million travelers, Prince Muhammad Airport came in 11th among 80 of the world’s airports in that category, which put it in 38th position overall among the world’s top 267 airports.

“This ranking is a global recognition of Tibah Airports [the company that operates the airport] meticulous implementation of the highest of quality standards in managing the services presented to travelers,” said Muhammad Al-Fadel, director of the Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport Authority in Madina. “It also goes to show just how dedicated each and every member of the airport’s staff is to achieving the best possible results in services and meeting the best international standards.”

Tibah Airports, Fadel continued, is relentless in its pursuit of exceeding the travelers’ expectations of quality services throughout the airport, which is part of the leadership’s keen support of the continuous development of the Kingdom’s air transport services.

He underlined the constant support the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) provides to boost the Kingdom’s civil aviation industry and its contribution to the national economy.

Prince Muhammad Airport, Fadel explained, had achieved high rankings in a number of categories in ACI’s evaluation, especially those concerning safety, which shows just how far the aviation industry has come.

He highlighted the fact that the Kingdom’s airspace is one of the world’s safest to fly in, which contributes to the ever-increasing air traffic and the growing diversity of operators in the country.

Sufyan Abdulsalam, director of Tibah Airports, expressed his extreme satisfaction with ACI’s results, saying that this would be only a starting point for even more improvement and betterment of services to bring them above the expectations of travelers and GACA.

ACI is the only global body that represents more than 1,850 commercial airports all over the world, or about 95 percent of all global airport traffic. To celebrate excellence in airport operations, the council applies a quality program that measures traveler satisfaction with airport services and, based on the results, provides airports with the tools and instruments to research and access travelers’ opinions and the products and services they wish to have.