Incheon airport named world's best for 7th year in a row

Incheon International Airport won the title of "Best Airport Worldwide" Thursday in Singapore from the Airports Council International, the world's first to win the industry's equivalent of the Nobel Prize for seven consecutive years.

A group of some 1,700 airports around the world, the council named the winner after conducting face-to-face interviews with 350,000 airport users in 34 categories including service and facility operations. Korea's main gateway was cited for raising customer satisfaction by providing quick processing for arrivals and departures. Entry processing took an average of 16 minutes and departure processing 12 minutes, far quicker than the international standards of 60 minutes and 45 minutes, respectively.

Last month, the Incheon airport won a similar honor for 2012 from the U.K.-based Skytrax, one of the world's most authoritative agencies in global airline service research.

"We've established an image as a quick, safe and convenient airport thanks to help from various organizations operating at the airport and business partners", said Lee Chae-wook, CEO of Incheon International Airport Corp. "We've made great efforts to differentiate the airport from others by introducing cultural concepts into operations".

Gimpo International Airport, Korea's No. 2 air hub, was also named the world's best by the Airports Council International among 30 medium-sized airports worldwide with an annual processing capacity of 15 million to 25 million passengers.