Malaga Airport ranks among the best in the world, but which one takes the top spot in Spain?

There are around 9,000 airports that operate commercial flights around the world. Taking all of them into consideration, AirHelp - the world's leading technology company in the defence of passenger rights - has been compiling a ranking of the top 250 airports since 2015. Malaga Airport is among the 14 Spanish facilities that have entered the list.

This year, the gateway to the Costa del Sol has positioned itself at number 124, having climbed 55 positions to receive 7.56 points. At a national level, it is considered the seventh best airport in Spain, surpassing Barcelona's El Prat Airport, Alicante airport and Palma de Mallorca airport, which scored last among Spanish airports this year.

To compile this comprehensive ranking, AirHelp includes three factors: punctuality (60% of the weight); user feedback (20%); and the quality of catering and retail space (20%). "The data comes mainly from AirHelp's analytics platform, which monitors more than 4,000 airports worldwide as well as recent passenger experiences collected between 1 June 2024 and 31 May 2025," the company says.

Based on these factors, Bilbao is the No.1 Spanish airport in this year's ranking, taking 16th place globally, with 8.16 points. It is the second best airport in Europe, with an 8.3 in punctuality, an 8 in customer ratings and a 7.7 in leisure facilities such as shops and restaurants.

The second-placed Spanish facility is Seville Airport, which occupies 68th place in its second year in this ranking, after climbing 30 positions with respect to last year and receiving a score of 7.78 - the result of an average of 7.9 for punctuality, 8.1 for user opinion and 7.2 for services.

In this year's edition, the third place is occupied by Madrid-Barajas Airport, which has dropped 26 places in relation to last year, now at the 76th position. However, its average is still remarkable - a 7.75.

Valencia, Fuerteventura, Tenerife North, Alicante, Barcelona, Gran Canaria, Tenerife South, Lanzarote, Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca are also among the 250 best airports in the world. Ahead of Malaga, Valencia is in the 81st place in the world ranking and fourth in the whole country, with an average score of 7.73. The fifth Spanish airport enters the list for the first time: Fuerteventura Airport, which is ranked the 88th in the world, with a 7.70 average score. Just ahead of the Costa del Sol is Tenerife Norte Airport, in sixth position in Spain and 105th in the world. The Canary Islands airport's rating is 7.63.

The two Balearic Islands airports - Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca - have gone down 125 and 86 positions, now standing at 203 and 208, respectively. The same has happened with the second most important airport in Spain - El Prat in Barcelona, which is ranked the ninth in Spain and the 127th in the world, with a score of 7.55, after dropping 38 positions in one year.

The best in the world

At a global level, the airport that leads this ranking is Cape Town Airport (South Africa), with 8.57 points, followed by Doha Hamad Airport (in Qatar), with 8.52 points, and Riyadh King Khaled Airport (Saudi Arabia), with 8.47 points. Malaga has direct flights to the latter two of these destinations.

According to AirHelp, European airports do not achieve higher positions due to "delays of more than three hours", which often occur. Taking into account that AirHelp considers even as little as 15 minutes of delay as a punctuality issue, this places European airports behind those in the Middle East, South Africa and North America. Only one European airport has ranked among the top ten in the world - Bergen Flesland Airport in Norway, with an 8.27 points.