The travelling public has once more confirmed that Gulf Air’s on-board catering is unrivalled. The airline has received the 2006 Skytrax Award for ‘best onboard catering excellence’ for a third consecutive year.

Skytrax Awards provides the most prestigious recognition of outstanding quality excellence for product and customer service delivery across today’s world airline industry.

‘The introduction of onboard chefs by Gulf Air a couple of years ago set a new benchmark for onboard catering standards,’ said Gulf Air President and Chief Executive James Hogan.

‘Whilst this is concentrated on the premium end of the aircraft, the concept has resulted in a much more notable improvement to Gulf Air onboard catering standards across all cabins, and more importantly this consistency of quality has been maintained over three successive years.’

These independent awards are the result of the most comprehensive analysis of product and service standards and have become a bench mark for aviation industry for their products and services.

Skytrax in announcing the 2006 awards said that Gulf Air dominated the 2006 Best Airline Onboard Catering Survey which was achieved as a result of 2,046,117 eligible survey interviews, during the nine-month project period.

As well as achieving the Best First Class Catering title, there was a 2nd place in the Best Business Class Catering category and 5th position up from 6th last year, in Best Economy Class Catering.

‘These awards are based on ‘real’ quality standards - in other words, the actual quality of product and service being delivered, every hour of every day, to an airline’s customers,’ commented Skytrax Director Marketing Peter Miller in a statement.

The icing on the cake came with the news that Skytrax voters had voted Gulf Air as the Best Regional Airline in the Middle East region category.

‘The fact that these awards are customer-decided rather than industry-decided underlines customers’ confidence in Gulf Air and we will spare no efforts to keep up the goodwill we have earned from our passengers and in the aviation industry,’ says Head of Inflight Services and Cabin Crew Michael Kent.

‘The award reiterates our penchant for quality standards and passion for providing the best for our discerning passengers. Gulf Air is passionate about maintaining its world class standards when it comes to onboard services.

‘Our unique Sky Chef, Sky Nanny and the range of food we offer in all cabins have set new standards for inflight services in the aviation industry.’

The latest award follows a growing list of industry accolades for Gulf Air. The airline recently won the prestigious Mercury ‘Gold’ award in the on board service category and was also named ‘overall winner’ by the International Travel Catering Association (ITCA) for its innovation, quality in application and customer satisfaction in onboard service.

The airline also won, in December 2005, two major awards at the PAX International Readership Awards Ceremony- one for ‘best new product launch’ in inflight service for catering, service, design and delivery, and the other, for the ‘Middle East region’s best airport restaurant’ for its restaurant at Bahrain International Airport lounge.
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