As the home of many European Union institutions and their “Brussels Bubble” spin-offs, the Belgian capital is a hub for business travellers.
But flying on a budget airline means a 45-minute bus ride to Brussels from the city of Charleroi, or Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which was recently named the world’s worst airport in an analysis of passenger reviews.
Getting a 1.2 out 10 rating, Charleroi was deemed slightly worse than Germany’s Berlin-Brandenburg and Leeds-Bradford in Britain in the assessment, which was carried out by Business Financing and was based on reviews posted on Skytrax’s Airline Quality platform.
With a 6.8 average score, Noi Bai in Hanoi, Vietnam was the winner – a reflection of the country’s growing popularity as a destination for foreign investment in the wake of rising China-United States tensions.
“The terminals are extremely clean and airport staff are very friendly. There are excellent food choices available,” one reviewer said of the Vietnamese capital’s airport.
Singapore Changi and Hong Kong International – airports which regularly feature near the top of passenger rankings and industry assessments – were named second and third-best.
Helsinki came in fifth, with Budapest the next-highest European airport at number 11. At 19th, Chicago Midway was the highest-ranked US airport, while Fort Lauderdale is the “worst”, coming in fourth from the bottom overall.
Others that fared badly were London Luton and London Stansted – both notorious for entailing even more time-consuming commutes to central London than that from Charleroi to the heart of Brussels, where the main international airport is a 20-minute train ride away. – dpa
