What is the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Survey?

How do you know that an airport operator is doing a good job in terms of customer satisfaction? How does your airport compare with another airport? Has your airport improved from last year? These are just some of the questions that airport managers ask. Performance benchmarking is helpful to answer these questions. In my view, the ASQ Survey program is currently the best program available to airport managers.

5 facts about the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Survey

1. The ASQ Survey Program is an intiative of the Airport Councils International (ACI)to help airports deliver better customer service. There are over 130 airports around the world that are participating in this program. A precursor to this was the AETRA survey. In my view, this is the most comprehensive and extensively used survey in the airport industry currently. The ASQ Survey is the four core programs of the ASQ Initiative which also includes ASQ Performance, ASQ Assured and ASQ Management.

2. At each participating airport, a statistically significant number of passengers are surveyed each quarter. The survey method is by questionnaire where departing passengers in the gate areas are asked to fill in the survey. The surveys are administered quarterly by an independent external party not connected to the airport.

3. The survey consists of about 30 questions which are the same world wide. The survey is grouped into categories and the questions are on a 5 point scale with 5 being the best. Examples of the questions include ambience of the airport, friendliness of airport staff, cleanliness of restrooms.

4. The results are complied and issued quarterly to all the airports on the program. These results provide year on year comparisons and also compares each airport with the other airports in the program. The reports identifies areas that each airport is strong and weak in compared to the average score. This allows each airport to make operational and capital decisions in order to drive service quality improvement at the airport.

5. Top 5 airports in the world in 2009 - Seoul Incheon International Airport, Singapore Changi Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, and Hyderabad Rajiv Ghandi International Airport

Top Airport (By region)
George, South Africa (Africa); Seoul Incheon, South Korea (Asia-Pacific); Keflavik, Iceland (Europe); Cancun, Mexico (Latin America-Caribbean); Tel Aviv, Israel (Middle East) and Austin, USA (North America).

Top Airport (By traffic size categories)
Halifax, Canada (under 5 million), Hyderabad, India (5-15 million), Baltimore/Washington, USA (15-25 million), Seoul Incheon, South Korea (25-40 million) and Hong Kong, China (over 40 million).

If you would like to read more about ASQ, please explore these links.

- Airport Service Quality website (click here)
- ASQ results news release for best airports in 2009 (click here)