Cochin International Airport Ltd has won Airport Council International (ACI) World’s Voice of the Customer initiative award for the health and safety practises it implemented during the period of the pandemic. Through this global award, ACI recognises airports “ that continued to prioritize their customers and remained committed to ensuring that their voice was heard during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 ”
“The Voice of the Customer recognition celebrates the commitment of airports that continued listening to passengers and adapting processes and procedures to meet the changing expectations of the customer experience in response to COVID-19,” said ACI World’s Director-General, Luis Felipe de Oliveira in a communiqué announcing the recognition. “As our industry works towards recovery, airports that listen to – and prioritise the needs and expectations of – customers will be better-placed to respond” He added. CIAL Managing Director V.J.Kurian said that the ACI’s service quality programmes have been helping the airport officials to ensure international standards in airport operations management. “ The ACI world voice of customer recognition is a great initiative to asses individual organization’s competence in crisis response. CIAL is always committed to facilitate a safe travel experience for passengers. We are grateful for this honour from ACI”: added Mr.Kurian.
Cochin International Airport which had won ACI passenger satisfaction awards for the 5-15 million passenger category consecutively in 2018 and 2019 implemented new benchmarks in hygiene management during the pandemic time. It installed devices and successfully experimented with technologies to ensure hassle-free passenger movement from the public transport alighting points at the airport premises to the aircraft boarding gates. The airport deployed systems like disinfection corridor, automatic sanitiser dispensers, fumigation machines at the terminal. State of the art Ultra Violet baggage baths developed by DRDO were also installed in conveyor belt systems.
The airport handled 33.38 lakhs passengers and 30,737 aircraft movements during 2020. Its cargo division facilitated 48,424 metric tons of cargo during the year of the pandemic.