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Toronto Pearson has once again been named “Best Large Airport in North America serving more than 40 million passengers” by Airports Council International (ACI) World, the global trade representative of the world’s airports. The win comes as part of ACI World’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) program, which recognizes airports across the globe that deliver the best customer experience in the opinion of their own passengers.
“Becoming the first North American Airport to win three years in a row in the 40 million passenger and above category reflects Toronto Pearson’s commitment to enhancing the passenger experience,” said Deborah Flint, president and CEO, Greater Toronto Airports Authority. “We want to thank our passengers for voting for us once again, and we want them to know we’re continuing to work on improving their travel journey.”
In 2019, Toronto Pearson added several new features to help improve the airport experience, including:
- 26 new retail stores, restaurants and other services, including enhanced Duty Free shopping, such as Chanel, Furla and Hugo Boss, new exciting restaurants, such as The Hearth Kitchen Market and Vino Volo, and a partnership with Rogers Communications which includes premium Ignite TV lounges in both terminals allowing travellers to catch their favourite shows on the Rogers Ignite TV service.
- New accessibility features such as assisted change rooms for passengers with mobility restrictions, new post-security screening pet relief areas and Aira, a smartphone app that helps passengers who are blind or low vision navigate the airport independently. These are part of an overall focus on providing more choice and ease in the passenger experience for persons with disabilities.
- Expanded flight services to India, Italy, the United States, Mexico City and the Philippines, as well as new direct flights with Air Canada to Quito, Ecuador and WestJet to Barcelona, Spain.
The ASQ program is the world’s leading airport customer experience measurement and benchmarking program, measuring passengers’ satisfaction across 34 key performance indicators. In 2019, more than half of the world’s 8.8 billion travellers passed through an ASQ airport.
Despite Pearson Airport being listed as “Best large Airport in North America’ the food concessions at this airport continue to be some of the WORST at any airport that I have traveled through. They have constantly attempted to re-invent the wheel with smoke and mirrors to give the perception the food is better when in fact it is nothing short of disgusting! The contractors who are operating these concessions simply don’t care and should be forced to visit airports such as Chicago, Denver or Charlotte and see what acceptable food is really all about.