Plagued, as of late, by corruption, mafia, debt, poor infrastructure, a pothole crisis and garbage spilling onto the streets, Rome apparently does have one functioning facility: its airport.
And not just functioning, but even at the top of its game: for the second year in a row, the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport has been nominated the best airport in Europe for the quality of services offered, by ACI (Airport Council International), an international association that measures, through passenger interviews, the quality perceived in 300 airports around the world with more than 40 million passengers annually.
The ‘Best Airport Award 2018’ was assigned to the Roman airport during the annual meeting of the ACI in Brussels. A panel of aviation industry experts, including representatives from the European Commission, Eurocontrol, the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) and the European Travel Commission, were called to judge on the performance of the airports. Finalists included Barcelona – El Prat, Copenaghen, London Heathrow and Oslo.
Among the services most appreciated by passengers at Fiumicino are the electronic checkpoints for the automatic control of passports (available for over six million travelers); the general comfort of the airport; the cleanliness of the terminals and toilets; the clarity of information for the public; the courtesy of the airport staff; and the speed of the security checks.
Following this performance, ACI has decided to definitively insert Leonardo da Vinci on the list of the best airports worldwide, along with the international airports of Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Toronto, Indianapolis, Mumbai, Delhi and Moscow.
In addition, Fiumicino has been rated second in Europe and one of the top 10 in the world in terms of punctuality of flights in 2018, according to February surveys by Flightstats (take note: buses may not run on time in Rome, but planes do). In January 2019, Fiumicino won the Assaeroporti award as the airport with the highest increase in number of passengers in 2018, at 5%.