[williamchung taiwan]

Taoyuan Airport wins international prize through attentive service
2011/04/01 19:36:50





Taipei, April 1 (CNA) Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport beat 240 airports in 100 countries to win top place for Best Airport Security Processing, airport authorities said Friday.

The country's main gateway climbed two notches in Skytrax's World Airport Reports 2010 with what the airport official described as "attentive services."

"We treat passengers with care instead of suspicion, " said Yang Chyi-lin, deputy director of the Aviation Police Office.

Yang cited its lost and found policy as one example of his staff's approach to service. He said passengers lose about 300 items at security checkpoints each month. But instead of waiting for the passenger to come back and claim the item, security officers will retrieve video footage of the checkpoint processing, go to the departure counter and identify the person who lost the item, and find that person before he or she boards the plane.

"Our people have become so familiar with the procedure that they can almost locate the person within a few minutes without fail, " he said.

After the approach was adopted in 2009, the number of lost items dropped by more than half, according to Yang.

The World Airport Awards are given out based on the results from 11.38 million survey questionnaires completed by travelers from over 100 countries.

Japan's Nagoya Airport and South Korea's Incheon International Airport were ranked second and third, respectively, in the security