AirHelp unveils the 'best' and the 'worst' airports in 2024

AirHelp ranks 239 airports from 69 countries with an AirHelp score

Travel tech company supporting passengers with flight disruptions AirHelp has released the first half of its 2024 AirHelp Score. 

Having helped passengers better plan their flights since 2015 with the AirHelp Score, this year’s airports and airlines rankings will be published separately to ensure passengers have access to the latest rankings for airports ahead of travelling this summer. 

This year’s ranking includes 239 airports from 69 countries, with over 17,550 unique airport rankings from passengers. 

The data reveals that European airports fared poorly again this year with only eight airports in Europe making it into the top 50 and Leeds Bradford Airport emerging as the first UK airport, in 69th place.

Airports were evaluated in the categories of Punctuality, Customer Opinions, and Food & Shops. 

With an overall score of 8.07 points, Norway’s Bergen Flesland Airport comes in 25th place, making it Europe's best airport for 2024. 

The continent’s second-best airport is also in Norway, with Bodø Airport scoring 8.06 points and rising an impressive 32 places from 59th in 2023 to 27th place this year. 

Last year’s leading European airport, Bilbao Airport in Spain, is in third place having dropped by 8 positions from 21st to 29th place this year. 

The fourth-best airport in Europe, with a score of 8.02 points, is Reykjavik Keflavik Airport in Iceland, closely followed by Dortmund Airport in Germany in fifth place and 32nd overall, with 8.02 points. 

With an overall score of 6.53 points, London Gatwick is Europe's second-worst airport and third-worst in the world.

This is a result of the airport scoring exceptionally low when looking at flight punctuality, with only 5.7 points. 

Manchester Airport and London Luton Airport are just ahead in the ranking at 230th (6.85 points) and 228th (6.94 points) respectively. 

London Heathrow comes in at 200th place in the global ranking with a score of 7.18. 

The global ranking reveals that Doha Hamad Airport in Qatar is in first place as the world’s leading airport, with 8.52 points, having knocked last year’s leading airport, Muscat International Airport in Oman, down to 7th place. 

Cape Town Airport in South Africa comes in second, with an average of 8.5 points across the categories of punctuality, customer opinions, and food and shops.

Airports in Japan take third and fourth place in this year’s ranking, with Nagoya Chubu Airport and Osaka Itami Airport scoring 8.49 and 8.46 points respectively. 

Finally, Brasília–Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek Airport in Brazil has dropped by 1 position this year to come in 5th place in the global ranking with 8.32 points.

For the first time, AirHelp has added size categories to this year’s score to allow passengers to compare airports of the same size. The airports have been categorised by the number of flights they handled in the year. 

Looking at those who handled over 250,000 flights, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the United States comes out on top and in 15th place overall, with 8.20 points. This is closely followed by Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, both in the United States, with 8.20 and 8.18 points respectively. 

In contrast, for airports that operated under 50,000 flights in 2024, Belém Val-de-Cans Airport in Brazil was the highest-ranking airport with 8.26 points at 9th place in the global ranking. 

The second-best performing small airport was Nagasaki Airport in Japan. Whilst this airport is a new entry for 2024, it scored an average of 8.20 points across the categories of punctuality, customer opinions and food & shops. 

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, said: "AirHelp’s mission is to educate passengers so that they can make informed decisions when they fly. Similarly to understanding their rights, passengers should know which airports offer the best services overall. 

"Through the AirHelp Score, we can help passengers better predict what their experience will look like at different airports and what they can do if their flight gets delayed, cancelled or overbooked.”