A new global survey has ranked Manchester Airport as the World’s number one airport on Twitter.

Airport social media firm, AirGate Solutions, found that there are currently 143 airports in the world using Twitter as an official passenger service, and that Manchester Airport tops the list as the most active and engaged of them all.

The ranking method is a simple ratio of airport passengers to followers by which the airports are ranked in descending order. The main results are as follows:

(1.) MANCHESTER AIRPORT; (2.) LONDON HEATHROW; (3) BOSTON; (4.) BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON; (5.) LONDON GATWICK; (6.) ORLANDO; (7.) PHOENIX; (8.) LOS ANGELES; (9.) MINNEAPOLIS-ST PAUL; (10) DALLAS/FORT WORTH.

Robert Cook, Managing Director of AirGate Solutions and influential blogger with New York’s Forbes magazine, published the survey. Speaking of the results, he said: “We feel that if an airport has a higher ratio of followers to passengers then it is more engaged with its travelling customers. Manchester came out on top in the 20million passenger category, which demonstrates that the airport is using it to very good effect.”

He added: “Since publishing a similar report last March we have received much interest within the industry and there has been a 26% increase in the number of airports adopting Twitter to talk to passengers. More and more organisations are beginning to realise the growing effectiveness of using Twitter and other social media tools to connect with their audiences.”

Manchester Airport became the first UK airport to officially launch a Twitter stream, in February 2009. It currently has a following of around 9300. During the recent disruptions with the volcanic ash, the application was a vital tool in communicating with passengers around the world who were looking for information on airport closures.

Russell Craig, Manchester Airport’s Head of External Communications said: “It’s fantastic to receive this recognition – during our recent experiences with snow and the volcanic ash cloud, Twitter became a vital channel. Updates were posted as they happened, enabling those following the airport to get the latest information at the same time as the news organisations – even Sky News was taking live updates from our Twitter stream to use its website and TV channel.”