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Daily Mirror

Travel

Milo Boyd

UK airports fail to make top 100 rankings as post-pandemic struggle continues

United Kingdom Pandemic Brazil London AirHelp Japan Spain Tokyo Gatwick (Geopolitical Entity) International Airport

The best airports in the world have been announced - and the UK's travel hubs are no where to be seen, while Brazil has flourished.

Each year AirHelp, the world's largest air passenger rights organisation, produce a global ranking of airports, based on time performance, quality of service, and what passengers think about them.

At the top of the pile this year is Tokyo Haneda International Airport, which received an overall score of 8.83 and was praised for how smooth an experience passengers' enjoy, and how much they love the travel hub.

The bad news for British and European flyers more broadly is that of the 151 airports analysed, only five in Europe made it into the top 50.

British airports perform particularly poorly, with four of the 10 worst airports are located in Great Britain, specifically all in England

Despite being major travel hubs, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports all failed to make it in the top 100.

There was a glimmer of hope though as Liverpool John Lennon Airport came in at 36th place - although it was the top UK airport in the rankings.

London Luton Airport did not do so well (Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, told the Mirror that UK airports were suffering from a long post-lockdown hangover.

He said the company's data showed that of the 679,000 scheduled flights carrying more than 101 million passengers from the UK in 2022, only 65% departed on time – meaning close to 234,000 flights were disrupted, and more than 13,000 flights were cancelled entirely.

June and July were the worst months for delays and disruption, with only 52% and 53% of flights leaving on time, respectively.

"Even though this is the busiest time of year to fly, with many passengers jetting off on their summer holidays, this data demonstrates that most UK airlines experienced higher-than-expected passenger traffic while still battling staffing shortages from Covid-19," he said.

He added: "For the five busiest UK airports - London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, Manchester and Edinburgh - no more than 64% of passengers departed on time in 2022.

Gilberto Freyre International Airport was judged to be second best in the world (LightRocket via Getty Images)

"This ongoing disruption in 2022 highlights the issues for UK airports navigating an increased appetite for travel with staff shortages and difficulties training new hires to ensure they are operational."

When it comes to the question of why UK airports were hit harder than their European counterparts which were under the same coronavirus related pressures, Tomasz said: "UK airports were among the first to make redundancies in response to the pandemic in comparison to airports in other European countries, which continued to employ a greater proportion of staff even when there was significant disruption caused by Covid.

"This meant that when the travel restrictions lifted post-pandemic, the UK was tasked with sustaining a pre-pandemic quality of service while being significantly short staffed."

Airports in Spain and France cut fewer jobs than the UK, while airports in Germany, France, and Spain offered staff incentives like pay raises and bonuses for those who referred friends for jobs, helping to navigate the quick turnover when borders reopened.

"Government programmes were also pushed out in countries like Spain and France focused on retention and employment of new staff," Tomasz added.

"With this in mind, airports in Europe have managed to retain the majority of their workers and are now seeing the benefits.

"Despite UK airports acting early during the pandemic to lay off staff amid travel bans, these airports were late in comparison to other countries with their re-hiring processes.

"This is largely due to the training requirements of new airport staff and other lengthy procedures involved with onboarding staff, such as obtaining security clearings - all of which combined can take three to four months."

While the UK had the most passengers to deal with in Europe at 101million, its 64% on-time departure rate compares badly to Spain's 77% from 95million passengers.

In what could be seen as a surprising strong showing, Brazil dominated the top of the list - with seven of its travel hubs in the top 20.