REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BALIKPAPAN -- Sepinggan International Airport in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan Province, becomes the second best airport in the world for passenger capacity category reaching 5-15 million per year and archives the 2017 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Award from Airport Council International (ACI). Sepinggan shared the position along with Hothot Airport in China.
ACI based in Montreal, Canada is an international institution that measures satisfaction of service level at airports around the world.
"The organization assesses 34 aspects of services from accessibility to airport, check in passengers service, inspection of goods and passengers, availability of shopping and restaurants, event toilets," Sepinggan International Airport's General Manager Handy Heryudhitiawan said here on Thursday.
The assessment results are announced quarterly, and the best score is based on the accumulated quarterly assessments.
There were 343 airports from 84 countries being assessed. The assessment is based on the number of passengers per year that can be accommodated by the airport. The assessment is secretly and openly conducted by ACI staff members.
Sepinggan Airport is the only Indonesia's airport which is always ranked in the top 10 airports in the world in the last four years.
Sepinggan International Airport, Balikpapan.
The airport is managed by the State-Owned Enterprise, PT Angkasa Pura I. At the same time, two airports which are also managed by PT Angkasa Pura I, namely, Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar, Bali Province, and Djuanda Airport in Surabaya, East Java Province is the first best and the third best for passenger capacity category of 15-25 million per year.
In terms of public facilities, Sepinggan Airport has many toilets adjacent so that passengers do not have to queue long and walk away.
Sepinggan International Airport, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan during renovation on January 29, 2013.
Electric sockets to recharge mobile phone batteries are also easy to find at the airport.
The best airport in the world for 5-15 million passengers is Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, India.
Meanwhile, the third best airports are Cochin Airport, China. Kolkata International Airport in Calcutta, India also achieved the third best.