Best Airport in the World

For the corporate traveller, the airport is rarely a destination. It is a transit space, a working environment, and a single point of failure for the carefully planned schedule that decides whether the day’s meeting actually happens.

The hub that gets it right is the one that quietly returns hours to the traveller’s week, through faster security, predictable connections, lounges that hold capacity at peak, and the on-the-ground basics that the marketing brochure tends to skip.

The Best Airport in the World award, part of the Travelling for Business Awards 2026, recognises the hub that does that work measurably better than its peers. The category is global; entries are open to commercial airports of any size with credible evidence of corporate-traveller performance over the last 12–18 months.

Judging is grounded in published operational data, ACI World traffic statistics, Eurocontrol punctuality reporting, host-carrier on-time performance, and cross-referenced against the Skytrax World Airport rankings and the panel’s own through-airport experience. Connection performance against minimum connect times, security and immigration speed at typical peak, lounge density and quality, and operational sustainability all feature in the assessment.

This award is closely associated with Best Airline Lounge, Best Long-Haul Airline and Best Short-Haul Airline, where host-carrier performance and airport performance are inseparable. Coverage in Travelling for Business magazine tracks the same set of through-airport metrics year-round.

Sponsorship of the Best Airport in the World category is open on a single-sponsor basis – see the sponsorship page. The 2026 judging panel reviews entries against the published criteria.