This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Travelers give Salt Lake City International Airport higher-than-average grades — except for a few things such as messy restrooms, slow Wi-Fi service and the quality of some of its aging facilities.
"We rank low for facilities — so it's a good thing we're building a new airport," Nancy Volmer, the airport's director of public relations and marketing, told the Airport Advisory Board on Wednesday.
The airport has embarked on a $2.9 billion rebuilding project, with the first major phase scheduled for completion in 2020.
Volmer reported the 2016 findings of the Airport Service Quality survey, in which 284 airports globally participate. It asks travelers at the airports to rank services there on a scale from one (low) to five (high) through 55 questions.
Salt Lake City received an overall satisfaction ranking of 4.29, higher than the average of 4.15 among all the participating airports globally — and the 4.17 average for the 45 participating airports in North America.
Salt Lake City ranked No. 95 for satisfaction out of all 284 major participating airports, and No. 25 among the 45 North American airports.
Volmer noted the airport received relatively high ranking for such things as ease of parking, finding the way through the airport, efficiency and courtesy of check-in staff, and ease of making connections.
But it ranked relatively low on such things terminal cleanliness, Wi-Fi service and overall ambiance of facilities — which are aging, and now are serving twice as many passengers than designs intended.
"I think we are seeing some of the ranking lower because of the facilities," most of which will soon be replaced, she said.
The airport board urged action to address services that could be improved without the need for new facilities — such as restroom cleanliness and upgrading slow Wi-Fi service.
Director Maureen Riley said the airport already is moving to increase Wi-Fi bandwidth to handle all the computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices passengers bring. "It's a never-ending game to try to keep up with the demand," she said.
Officials said they also recently acted to help raise wages for contracted janitors to help retain more of them — and also to allow more service during the day.
They said turnover rates had been about 100 percent during the past year — essentially meaning all their janitors had left — because they were attracted by higher wages elsewhere. They also reported some trouble finding enough U.S. citizens who can meet security requirements to work in areas beyond checkpoints.
Riley said cleanliness also is made difficult by the increasing number of passengers, problems of an aging facility, and the nature of a hub airport — where restrooms can quickly become messy even a few minutes after being cleaned.