Virgin Atlantic celebrated the success of its second annual Heroes Awards on Thursday night, which took place at the airline’s headquarters in Crawley, Sussex.  The black tie event was hosted by Roland Rivron and attended by the airline’s chairman Sir Richard Branson. 

The Heroes Awards was developed to give all employees at Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Cargo and Virgin Travelstore the opportunity to be recognised for their achievements by their peers, work colleagues and customers.

Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Atlantic, said:

“I was delighted to attend the Heroes Awards ceremony, which was a resounding success.  Everyone in the company had the opportunity to nominate their Hero - which makes the recognition even more special for the finalists of each category.

“The Virgin Heroes Awards is an original idea that takes employee recognition to a new level.  The awards were aptly named Heroes as this describes the lengths that our staff will go to, to keep our customers happy.

“On a night when the achievements of many of Virgin’s best people were celebrated, the Superhero was Eddie Dirksz, a member of our cabin crew who joined the airline in 1987.”

The black tie event started with a champagne reception for all nominees and their guests followed by a three course dinner.  The award’s categories were chosen so that every staff member had equal opportunity to be nominated.  Every Hero received a cash prize of £1000.  The Charity Hero also won £1000 towards their chosen charity.  The Super Hero - Eddie Dirksz, who was the overall winner of the evening received a grand prize of £10,000. 

The winners were as follows:

SUPER HERO: EDDIE DIRKSZ - CABIN CREW
The Guru:  Mary Anne Coyle - Premier Team
Charity: Julie Jenkins - Virgin Vacations
Office Based:  Anne de Jongh - Administrator, Norwalk
Flying Club: Tina Sauri - LAX Clubhouse
Cabin Crew: Eddie Dirksz - Cabin Crew
Airports: Angela Coleridge - IAD Passenger Service Agent
Flight Deck Crew: Andy Tapsfield - Captain
Engineering: Vic Allen - Maintenance Assistant / Tug Driver
Cargo: Catherine McCoughlin - Commercial
Contractor: Gary Elman - Bagcraft
Virgin Holidays: Paul Lee - Online Editor
Virgin Travelstore: Rachel Harris - Virgin Flightstore
Chairman’s Award:  Kenny Hammel - Cabin Crew
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