GENEVA - SOUTH Korea's Incheon, Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International and Singapore's Changi are the world's top three airports for passenger service, according to results of a survey released on Monday by the industry body ACI.

It was the third year in a row that Asian airports captured the first three positions in the global league table. Passengers are asked to assess factors like cleanliness, comfort of waiting areas and ease of check-in.

In Europe the top spot went to Porto in Portugal, in North America to Dallas-Fort Worth, in Africa to Johannesburg, in Latin America to Ecuador's Guayaquil, and in the Middle East to Israel's Tel Aviv, ACI said.

A total of 90 airports - and 200,000 passengers - took part in the survey conducted during 2007, said ACI, the Airports Council International which groups 580 members operating 1,647 airports in 175 countries.

Incheon also headed the list in the 2006 survey, followed by Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Changi on level pegging, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Fourth and fifth in the latest survey were Hong Kong and Japan's Nagoya, according to ACI.

Guayaquil, which serves Ecuador's Pacific coast business capital and was once a traveller's nightmare, has recently undergone a total makeover. Currently, like the European leader Porto, it processes under five million passengers a year.

By contrast, Incheon and Changi see between 25 million and 40 million travellers pass through, and Hong Kong and Dallas-Fort Worth handle more than 40 million. Kuala Lumpur processes between 15 million and 20 million.

Photo: Changi Airport Terminal 3