2018 Survey – Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do our annual airport survey this year as we were busy launching our newly designed web site. If you would like to participate in our 2019 Survey, click here
Date: October 15, 2017
In our annual survey, we ask travellers to rate airports worldwide based on their comfort and sleep-ability. Most often, voters end up sleeping at these terminals because of jet lag during long layovers, flight delays, or just to take a quick cat nap before a flight.
Factors that might help to determine an airport’s sleep-ability include:
- Designated rest and quiet zones where tired travellers can relax and enjoy some stress-free time before their flight.
- Availability of transit hotels and sleep pods/cabins
- Plentiful, comfortable, arm-rest free seating
- Cots, blankets and pillows provided to travellers stuck in the airport overnight due to flight cancellations
Whether it’s a designated sleeping zone, padded bench, or sleep pod, here are the 25 airports that travellers voted to be most sleep-friendly!
- Singapore Changi International Airport, Singapore (SIN)
- Seoul Incheon International Airport, South Korea (ICN)
- Tallinn International Airport, Estonia (TLL)
- Vancouver International Airport, Canada (YVR)
- Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia (KUL)
- Munich International Airport, Germany (MUC)
- Tokyo Haneda International Airport, Japan (HND)
- Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong (HKG)
- Rio de Janeiro–Galeão International Airport, Brazil (GIG)
- Helsinki Vantaa Airport, Finland (HEL)
- Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport, Netherlands (AMS)
- Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan (NRT)
- Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand (BKK)
- Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates (DXB)
- Zurich Kloten International Airport, Switzerland (ZRH)
- New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport, India (DEL)
- Doha Hamad International Airport, Qatar (DOH)
- Porto Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Portugal (OPO)
- Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport, USA (MSP)
- Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, Taiwan (TPE)
- Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Vietnam (SGN)
- Portland International Airport, USA (PDX)
- Vienna International Airport, Austria (VIE)
- Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, India (BOM)
- Montevideo Carrasco International Airport, Uruguay (MVD)
Top 10 Least Sleep-Friendly Airports
It doesn’t require a lot of imagination to dream up what an airport might do to be considered highly “unsleepable”. Those airports that show up on this list provide little in the way of creature comforts. Some offer chairs rife with armrests, which limit anyone from laying down anywhere other than a cold and dirty floor. Others have staff determined to prohibit sleeping by waking up the weary and forcing them to move elsewhere. A few airports on this list closed at night, and they will evict those who wish to stay. And, a final few are so crowded and noisy that even if you did find a nice place to lay down, you’d be hard pressed to catch any kind of deep sleep before your flight.
These were the top airports where travellers struggled to catch some zzz’s:
- Rome Ciampino International Airport, Italy (CIA)
- Jeddah King Abdulaziz International Airport, Saudi Arabia (JED)
- Berlin Tegel Airport, Germany (TXL)
- Paris Beauvais–Tillé, France (BVA)
- New York City LaGuardia Airport, USA (LGA)
- Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, USA (FLL)
- Kathmandu Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal (KTM)
- Berlin Schönefeld Airport, Germany (SXF)
- London Luton International Airport, England (LTN)
- Newark Liberty International Airport, United States (EWR)