The final moments of summer might be starting to slip away at an alarming rate, like sand through our fingertips. But for me, every season is holiday season. One of my favourite (and, quite honestly, only) hobbies is scouring Skyscanner for cheap flights to literally anywhere – and so it’s pretty handy for me to know which airports to aim for and which to avoid when planning upcoming trips.
Luckily for me (and my fellow wanderlustful Londoners), Holiday rental site, Holidayhas done the research for us. They’ve analysed the data, crunched the numbers, and revealed the very best and the very worst airports in Europe. Aren’t they kind?
Now, I know what you’re thinking: with its outrageous number of airports (some decent, others… not so), surely London must have featured in at least one of the lists. But apparently not, because not a single London airport was included in the report. It turns out that in the airport world, London is considered completely and utterly average. And if there’s one thing we Londoners don’t like; it’s being average. But anyway, I’ll stop moaning now and get on with telling you which airports are flying high and which are stuck on the tarmac. Here we go…
The best airports in Europe 2024:
- Istanbul Airport, Turkey
- Francisco de Sá Carneiro Airport, Portugal
- Athens International Airport, Greece
- Václav Havel Airport Prague, Czech Republic
- Zurich Airport, Switzerland
So, Istanbul has taken the European airport crown with a rather impressive Google Maps rating of 4.4/5based on 101,956 reviews. The Turkey airport has been praised for its ‘efficiency, comfort and quality services’. Everything you could want from an airport, I suppose.
Porto’s airport, Francisco de Sá Carneirocame in at second place, also scoring 4.4/5 on Google Maps but across just 26,608 reviews. The Third spot went to 2022’s winner, Athens International. The Greek airport scored 4.3/5 on Google Maps, and has been consistently praised for its ‘ongoing commitment to providing an exceptional travelling experience for its passengers’. Prague and Zurich airports nabbed fourth and fifth place respectively.
The worst airports in Europe 2024:
- Heraklion International Airport, Greece
- Bordeaux-Merignac Airport, France
- Manchester Airport, UK
- Berlin Willy-Brandt International Airport, Germany
- Brussels-South Charleroi Airport, Belgium
Now, for the not so good news. This year, Heraklion International Airport has been named the worst airport in Europe, scoring just 2.6/5 on Google Maps. The 21,202 reviews that the Greek airport has received would suggest that a lot of travellers have encountered issues at the airportand were overall disappointed by their experience there.
Despite being named the second worst airport in Europe this year, Bordeaux-Merignac may be feeling pretty pleased with themselves, as they were previously named the very worst – and even a small improvement is an improvement, hey? The French terminal received a score of 2.8/5. The third worst spot has been taken by our pals up in Manchesterwith the airport receiving a Google Maps score of 3.1/5.
Don’t worry Manchesterwe still love you. And look, at least you’re not average…
Read the full study here.
