South African airports occupy two of the top three places for major airports in the Africa region in the 2016 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards, Airports Council International World (ACI World) announced in Montreal, Canada, on Monday. In this category, defined as airports handling more than two million passengers per year (mppa), Durban’s King Shaka International Airport took second place and Cape Town International Airport took third. First place went to Mauritius’ Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (SSR) International Airport.

In the category of airports handling less than 2-mppa, first place in Africa was taken by Bloemfontein’s Bram Fischer International Airport. No second or third placed airports were listed. The award for the best  improvement in airports service quality in Africa also went to Bloemfontein.

The ASQ is a global programme and the only one to survey passengers at airports on the day they fly. It carries out about 600 000 standardised surveys in 84 countries in 41 languages every year. Each survey involves 34 “key performance indicators”, which include the passengers’ experiences of airport access, restrooms, security, check-in, shops and restaurants.

“These [award winning] airports [worldwide] have dedicated themselves to delivering a stellar customer experience,” affirmed ACI World Director General Angela Gittens. “Promoting a culture of continuous service improvement has become a matter of gaining competitive advantage and optimising non-aeronautical revenue performance.”

By way of comparison, for Africa the 2015 ASQ Awards went, in the more than 2-mppa category, to Mauritius’ SSR (first), Cape Town and King Shaka (joint second) and Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International (third). The best African airport with fewer than 2-mppa was Upington, while the most improved African airport was Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International.

The 2016 awards will be presented at the 27th ACI Africa/World General Assembly, Conference and Exhibition, In Port Louis, Mauritius, in October. The ACI is the global airports trade association, with 623 members operating 1 940 airports in 176 countries.