Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) has secured the highest ranking in passenger satisfaction survey, in its 23-year history by bagging 4.99 index points out of 5 for the first quarter of the Calendar year 2022. The survey was conducted by Airports Council International (ACI), an organization of airport authorities aimed at unifying industry practices for airport standards globally.

 ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ Departures) is a benchmarking programme measuring passengers’ experience while they are at the airport. During the first quarter, ACI conducted ‘ASQ departures’ at 244 airports globally. The ASQ Departures questionnaire is self-completed by randomly selected passengers at the boarding gates of pre-selected flights. Selection of flights is based on the Official Aviation Guide (OAG) database according to seat capacity, flights’ destination, and carrier to obtain a representative sample of all departures from a participating airport. The ASQ Departures Survey covers all operating hours of the participating airport, and each day of the week is evenly distributed between each month of a quarter. Cleanliness, Health Safety, Availability of washrooms/toilets, Comfort of waiting at the gate areas, and ease of getting to the airport were the 5 important broad parameters that have been decided this time for the survey.

  CIAL Managing Directors S.Suhas IAS has attributed the high ranking of Kochi airport to efficient coordination of CIAL with other industry stakeholders as well as to the implementation of state-of-the-art passenger-friendly interfaces. “During the time of the pandemic, we have reworked the hygiene category in the SOP. Measures were taken to increase operational efficiency. Facilities like ultraviolet baggage disinfestation system, self-baggage drop machines, and controlled fumigation systems were installed at the terminals. As per the instruction of the Chairman and the Board of Directors, we have continued to adopt a comprehensive quality control process. Now we are focusing on even closer airline and airport operator collaboration. Discussions with more foreign carriers for enhancing the connectivity are in the pipeline. We have already made some progress. In June alone, Go First, the budget carrier has started three international services from Kochi. ’’- added Suhas.

CIAL has won many awards in the recent past for its effective management of traffic during the time of the pandemic. The significant achievements since January 2022 comprise the Airport Service Quality Award and Voice of the Customer Experience recognition; both instituted by Airport Council International and the Covid Champion award instituted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and FICCI.