NAIA among Asia’s worst airports for queueing — study

MANILA, Philippines — The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is one of the worst airports in Asia based on passengers' queueing experiences, according to data obtained by property management and hospitality company Casago.

The company analyzed passenger reviews about queuing times on the air travel review website airquality.com, referring only to airports with at least 20 one- or five-star reviews. The data was collected last July 2023.

NAIA was the eighth-worst airport in Asia as only 18.11% of reviewers gave the airport at least a four-to-five-star rating for queueing time.

Singapore's Changi Airport is not just the best in Asia when it comes to queuing time but in the whole world with 74.5% four-to-five-star ratings from reviewers.

Other Asian airports in the Global Top 20 were Cambodia's Siam Reap (No. 2), Japan's Haneda and Narita (Nos. 4 and 15), Hong Kong (No. 9), Vietnam's Noi Bai (No.11) and South Korea's Incheon (No. 20) as more than half of their reviews were favorable.

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Asia's worst airport for queueing time was Kuwait International Airport with only 11.11% four- to five-star ratings, which is just joint 16th-worst in the world in a list led by France's Grenoble Alpes Isère with just 1.59% of reviews with four or five stars.

In fact, three other airports in France — Bordeaux, Paris-Beauvais and Lyon-Saint Exupéry — were in the Global Bottom 20; the United Kingdom also had three airports in the lower rankings, namely, London Stansted, London Luton and Belfast.

Casago also cited a study by Washington State University on the relationship between frequent travel, happiness and well-being, which found that 41.1% of travelers from the Philippines would leave positive ratings about airport queues.

Most complainers about airport queues came from Malta, Saudi Arabia and Ireland, while reviewers from Estonia were the least likely to complain.

Overall, Philippine airports are rated positively (23.35%) most of the time. For comparison to those in the Top 10, airports in Saudia Arabia are rated positively (17.86%) — a far cry from Jamaica's airports at 6.25%.

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