Sydney Airport, Quantas Lag in Conde Nast Traveler Poll

In a recent Conde Nast Traveler magazine opinion poll both the Sydney Airport and Quantas airlines did not fair to well:

A LEADING American travel magazine has panned Sydney Airport and Qantas in an annual poll of readers.

The Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s annual survey of business world travellers, published in its October edition, gave Australia’s busiest airport a 48.2 rating out of 100, Fairfax has reported.

Singapore was named the best international airport with a 79.8 rating.

Customs, baggage, food, shops and amenities were the categories in which Sydney dropped the most points.

A Sydney Airport spokesman said it was not fair to judge the facility before the completion of a massive $500 million upgrade that began in February.

Embattled airline Qantas – which has weathered damage to its safety record in recent times – ranked seventh in a list of 10 airlines offering business class flights on trans-Pacific routes.

Australia again lost out to Singapore whose national carrier rated top in all categories.  [AAP]

I totally agree with the findings in regards to Sydney Airport.  I hate having to connect through there because I have had bad experiences with the customs people who were rude and hate having to wait to take a bus between terminals that takes forever to show up.  One time I waited nearly 25 minutes for a bus to show up and where I was waiting had either no air conditioning or it was broken.  Not a pleasant experience.  I try to avoid the airport if possible by taking direct flights from Melbourne which has a much easier airport to fly in and out of compared to Sydney.

Australia and the US could learn a lot about airport management by checking out some of the Asian airports such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Incheon, & Narita which are all far superior then any airport the US and Australia have.

The ranking of Quantas I think is driven by recent safety issues.  I have never had any problems flying on Quantas and find them to be a good airline.  If there discount carrier JetStar is included then maybe that knocked them down a bit because I flew on them before and was not impressed.  Bottom line is I am going to keep flying Quantas and avoiding Sydney Airport at all costs.