World's 10 best airports for 2024: Qatar's Hamad Int'l Airport ranks first

By Lebawit Lily Girma

Summer travel may be well underway, but there’s still time to make better airport choices for the second half of the year.

On July 9, AirHelp Inc. released its 2024 score report ranking the world’s best and worst airports. The company, which secures compensation for air travelers after delays and cancellations, creates the rankings partially based on the claims it processes worldwide—along with outside sources tracking on-time performance, customer feedback and the quality of food and shopping options at 239 airports globally. Punctual arrivals and departures represent 60 per cent of each airport’s score.

The data analysis spans from May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024, and includes 17,550 airport ratings that were collected by surveying passengers from 64 countries about their most recently used airports.

Taking the crown this year is Hamad International Airport in Qatar—which ranked fifth in last year’s awards. Cape Town International Airport in South Africa and Chubu Centrair International Airport in Japan come in second and third place, respectively.

But the real surprise this year points to the US, with Salt Lake City International Airport cracking the top 10 list; the gateway to Utah’s epic skiing and numerous national parks ranked 8th in the world and best in the US. The new SLC airport is a state-of-the-art facility that opened in September 2020 and has been seeing improvements ever since, with its final phase expected to be completed this fall.

The appearance of a US airport in the global top 10 is especially noteworthy, considering just three US airports made it on AirHelp’s top 50 global airports list in 2023: Minneapolis-St. Paul International (No. 13), Seattle-Tacoma International (No. 34) and Detroit Metropolitan Airport Wayne County (No. 38). This time, 10 US airports are among the top 50, including Washington Dulles International (No. 11), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (No. 16), Nashville International (No. 18) and Phoenix Sky Harbor International (No. 21).

“Looking at the 2024 rankings, the US has made strides, landing seven airports in the top thirty,” said Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, in an emailed statement. As airports restaff post-pandemic, the airport experience is improving for US-bound travelers, he added. 

That’s reflecting in the performance scores among the top 10 US airports, which show significant improvement over last year’s scores. On the 2023 list, the top-scoring US airport—Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP)—received a score of 8.15 (out of a maximum of 10 points). This year, six of the top 10 US airports received a higher score.

Here are AirHelp’s top 10 airports globally and in the US.

The 10 Best Airports in the World
 

10. Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan (NRT)

9. Val-de-Cans/Júlio Cezar Ribeiro International Airport, Belém, Brazil (BEL)

8. Salt Lake City International Airport, US (SLC)

7. Muscat International Airport, Oman (MCT)

6. Johannesburg-OR Tambo International Airport, South Africa (JNB)

5. Brasília-President Juscelino Kubitschek International Airport, Brazil (BSB) 

4. Osaka International Airport, Japan (ITM)

3. Chubu Centrair International Airport, Nagoya, Japan (NGO)

2. Cape Town International Airport, South Africa (CPT)

1. Hamad International Airport, Qatar (DOH)

The 10 Best US Airports

10. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

9. Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu (HNL)

8. Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)

7. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

6. Nashville International Airport (BNA)

5. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP)

4. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)

3. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)

2. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)

1. Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)