Zagreb Airport is the best European airport in the category of airports with an annual capacity of 2-5 million passengers for the third year in a row, the Zagreb International Airport company (MZLZ), which operates the airport, said on Monday, quoting findings of a customer satisfaction survey.

Respondents participating in the Airports Council International’s (ACI) Airport Service Quality survey rated the Zagreb airport, named after Croatia’s first president Franjo Tudjman, highly despite “challenging times that have resulted in a significant decrease in the number of passengers and operations in air traffic,” the MZLZ said.

ACI, which is based in Montreal, Canada, published the results of its survey for 2020, the most difficult and most demanding year in the history of civil aviation, on Monday.

This is the third time Zagreb Airport has been named the best airport in Europe among airports with a capacity of 2-5 million passengers, after 2018 and 2019. Soon after its reopening in 2017, the airport was recognised as the best improvement in Europe.

MZLZ Management Board President Huseyin Bahadir Bedi has said that the airport would soon introduce its summer timetable and that he hoped for the gradual recovery of air traffic and continuation of usual business activities.

MZLZ notes that the Airport Service Quality is a leading global programme for the evaluation of airport customer satisfaction in terms of the best industry practices, which uses 37 key indicators.

in 2020 ACI did not change the categorisation of airports with regard to the number of passengers regardless of the fact that all airports saw a significant drop in the number of passengers, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.