Delhi’s IGI Airport (IGIA) which was recently adjudged as the 2nd best in 25-40 Million Passengers Per Annum (MPPA) category in the World, received the Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Award at a ceremony in Seoul, South Korea on May 27, 2014. The 10-member Delhi Airport team comprising representatives from DIAL, CISF, Delhi Duty Free Services Pvt. Ltd, Airline Operating Committee (AOC) and Jet Airways was present at the ceremony. The event was a part of ACI Asia-Pacific/World Annual General Assembly (WAGA) having a theme; Airports: Serving the customer and the community.
IGIA has made rapid progress in enhancing the service quality at IGIA which has resulted in steady improvement in rankings over the last 7 years since DIAL took over the operations. The airport scored 4.84 on the ASQ scale out of 5 points and has been recognized as the 6th best Airport in the World amongst 235 participating airports across all categories and 2nd Best Airport in its Category in 2013 which is a remarkable progress from its ASQ score of 3.02 in 2007, ranking 101 out of the 125 participating airports.
Commenting on the occasion Mr. I Prabhakara Rao, CEO-DIAL said, "We are honored to represent an Indian airport at a highly acclaimed international forum as ACI for the third year in row. Our partners and employees have consistently delivered a memorable and distinct experience to our customers, which have enabled us in retaining the number 2 position. Above all, we would like to convey our sincere gratitude to our passengers and we vow to continue striving for the best and deliver a World Class airport experience to them.”??He further added, “Today we are working closely with the entire IGIA community for bringing ‘Sustainability’ in our organizational performance. To us, Sustainability is the endurance of systems and processes to perform consistently. In an airport setup, it serves as the cornerstone for not just delivering a world class passenger experience consistently but also achieving a healthy financial performance. We strongly believe that if we ensure Sustainability in all our services, retail offerings, operational efficiency, and environment friendliness then we can attain perpetual success.”??
In the words of Ms. Angela Gittens, Director General-ACI World, “Collaboration extends our reach and makes more progress possible. We are stronger together, but we would not be seen as valuable allies if we were not seen as capable of providing solutions-if we were not seen as having high standards and were not committed to achieving them. This is where the community of airports-the promotion of excellence-comes to the fore. A big advantage that we have as airport operators is the willingness to help each other, even in this era of more competition. We know that weakness anywhere hurts our system and ultimately hurts each of us.” ??
As the ASQ revolves around customer experience, DIAL is committed to follow customer-centric culture, thereby providing best facilities, uninterrupted comfort and timely services in the airport premises besides upholding an interactive and polite attitude towards customers.
It is worth mentioning here that in the year 2013, DIAL has managed to maintain an On-Time-Performance (OTP) of more than 80%. The IGI Airport now has an annual capacity of over 60 million passengers, including state-of-the art Terminal-3 (T3). Around 36.88 million passengers passed through IGIA in 2013. It handled nearly 6,00,000 tons of Cargo and over 3,00,000 Air Traffic Movements (ATM) during the same period.
The airport handled a combined peak hour demand of 8,900 pax in the month of December 2013.??
About the ASQ Awards??
The annual Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards recognize & reward the best airports in the world according to ACI's ASQ passenger satisfaction survey. They represent the highest possible accolade for airport operators and are an opportunity to celebrate the commitment of airports worldwide to continuously improve the passenger experience.??
Since its creation in 2006, the ASQ Survey has become the world’s leading airport passenger satisfaction benchmark with over 280 airports participating. Its scientific methodology, strict quality control procedures and commitment to impartiality have won industry recognition and established the ASQ Survey as the global standard for measuring passenger satisfaction.
ASQ is the only global airport survey based on measuring passengers’ satisfaction taken while the passenger is still at the gate. In 2013 over 350,000 passengers were interviewed prior to boarding their flight and asked to rate their satisfaction with the airport that day.