Europe's 'best' airport named and its not in UK, Spain or Germany

A lesser-known European airport located in a picturesque seaside town has been ranked as the continent's best, beating out major competitors across the UK, Spain and France.

Online flight compensation provider, AirHelp has compiled a list of the world's best 250 airports based on categories including punctuality, customer service and amenities.

Europe's highest-ranked airport came as a shock but perhaps even more surprising, was also the only option from the continent to make the top 10.

South Africa's Cape Town Airport was ranked as the world's best airport, according to AirHelp, earning an overall score of 8.57 on its metric.

According to AirHelp, European airports were hampered by their punctuality with "delays of more than three hours", occurring too often for many of the busier hubs to make the cut.

The Cape Town hub scored 8.6 for On-time Performance, 8.7 for Customer Opinion and 8.3 for Food and Shops.

Elsewhere, the Middle Eastern duo of Doha Hamad International Airport in Qatar and Saudi Arabia's Riyadh King Khaled Airport closed out the top three with scores of 8.52 and 8.47 respectively.

Brasília-Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek, Muscat, Panama City Tocumen, Durban King Shaka and Salt Lake City airports followed before the first European entry.

Bergen Flesland Airport, in Norway, with a score of 8.27 was ranked as Europe's supreme, and the world's ninth best, airport.

Norway's second-largest city, Bergen is known as the 'gateway to the Fjords', celebrated for its natural beauty and home to less than 300,000 people.

Less than 5 million flyers pass through the airport annually, roughly half of the top spot Cape Town's yearly passengers.

Bergen Flesland achieved a rating of 8.4 for its On-time Performance, 8.5 for Customer Opinion and 7.6 for Food and Shops, per AirHelp which ranked 250 airports across 68 countries in total.