Kingfisher Airlines Bags 3 Global Awards Named Best Airline in India and Central Asia; Best Cabin Crew – Central Asia; Kingfisher Red named Best Low Cost Service in India and Central Asia

Kingfisher Airlines, India’s leading airline and the first and only Five Star Airline from India has received three global awards at the SKYTRAX World Airline Awards ceremony held recently in Hamburg, Germany.

Kingfisher Airlines was named the “Best Airline in India and Central Asia” and won an award as one of the world’s best airlines in the regional breakdown for 2009. In the fiercely competitive segment of low cost travel, Kingfisher Airlines’ value offering ‘Kingfisher Red’ was adjudged the “Best Low-Cost Airlines in India and Central Asia” for the year 2009. Kingfisher Red is a class of service offered by Kingfisher Airlines and ever since its launch, this new class of service has redefined value flying in India. Kingfisher Airlines also won an award for having the “Best Cabin Crew-Central Asia”.

The SKYTRAX World Airline Awards™ celebrated their 10th anniversary with around 500 people attending the ceremony in Hamburg to see the winning airlines receive their accolades. Edward Plaisted (CEO of Skytrax) handed out awards in 34 categories. The airline industry’s most important audience - its customers, selected the award winners.

The SKYTRAX World Airline Awards are widely acclaimed as a truly global independent passenger survey of airline standards conducted over an 8 month period, covering over 16 million air travelers drawn from more than 95 different nationalities. The Survey data is collated from a variety of sources, including Passenger Interviews completed online & via e-mail, Business Research Group/ Travel Panel Interviews, Corporate Travel Questionnaire/ Interviews, Telephone Interviews and Selective Passenger Interviews and does not receive any third party sponsorship.

Dr. Vijay Mallya, Chairman & CEO, Kingfisher Airlines Limited said, “I am delighted that yet again, Kingfisher Airlines has received prestigious global awards that recognize excellence in different areas of air travel. Kingfisher Airlines has always focused on delivering a superlative service experience that essentially brings back the element of style in flying and our endeavour has been to make flying a delightful experience for all. The presentations of three different awards to Kingfisher Airlines in one year of the Skytrax awards will only encourage us to go a step further and wow our guests”.

Edward Plaisted, CEO of SKYTRAX, commented, “Like most other industries today, the airline industry seems to have a different Awards ceremony or survey result every week, and for the customer this creates not only an air of confusion, but can lead to a considerable mistrust of the relative merits of an award. It was this lack of trust and clarity of survey methods that led Skytrax to establish the World Airline Survey back in 1999 - a totally customer based survey about airline standards that provided a global reach.”

Over 200 artists presented during citywide celebration of Asian contemporary art

Over 200 artists will present their work at 35 museums and galleries during the sixth Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), May 10-18th, featuring over 60 receptions, exhibition viewings, screenings, artist conversations and walkthroughs throughout New York City. ACAW aims to promote increased public awareness of the richness and diversity of Asian contemporary art. This year, participating artists are from virtually every region including, for the first time, Cambodia and Tibet.

“Asian Contemporary Art Week aims to celebrate Asian contemporary art and to promote an expansive understanding of what it can be,” says Asia Society Museum Director Melissa Chiu. “This year’s event, presents the latest trends in Asian contemporary art, highlighting for example, the new vitality and increased international profile of artists from Central Asia and the Middle East.”

/p>“Since its inception in 2001, ACAW has grown tremendously, increasing the visibility of featured artists and inciting critical dialogue about their works,” notes ACAW director Leeza Ahmady. “The new Open Portfolios format will provide participants with a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with some of Asia’s most resilient artists.”

This year’s ACAW has a record number of artists participating from both the U.S. and Asia and includes many countries whose artists rarely exhibit work in the U.S. Among the countries represented are Afghanistan, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey, and Vietnam.

ACAW events will be held throughout the city Sunday May 10-Monday, May 18, with each day focusing on a different neighborhood: uptown on Tuesday, May 12, midtown on Wednesday, May 13, Chelsea on Thursday, May 14, downtown on Friday, May 15 and in all boroughs on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17.

New to this year’s ACAW is Open Portfolios, a series of 20 artist talks, screenings, performances, and gallery walkthroughs that will each focus on an aspect of an artist’s work. This gives artists the opportunity to share a part of their work that they find important and allows viewers to explore.