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Cathay Pacific Crowned OAG(R) Airline of the Year 2006; Continental Airlines Named Best Airline in North America for 3rd Year; JetBlue Wins Best Low Cost Airline for First Time; American Named Airline of Choice for Travelers With a Disability

Posted on: Friday, 19 May 2006, 12:10 CDT

At a glittering ceremony at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London today, Cathay Pacific took the title "OAG Airline of the Year 2006", along with two other awards.

Continental Airlines was named Best Airline based in North America for the third year running and Best Business/Executive Class for the fourth consecutive year.

JetBlue took the title Best Low Cost/No Frills Airline for the first time, beating Southwest Airlines, easyJet and last year's winner Virgin Blue. United Airlines won Best Economy/Coach Class, and American Airlines was named Airline of Choice for Travelers with a Disability, a new award introduced this year.

LAN Airlines retained the title Best Airline based in Central/South America & Caribbean.

Chicago O'Hare was voted best airport in the Americas but lost out to Singapore Changi for the Best Airport global title.

The awards, based on votes polled by a worldwide audience of business travelers, attracted an array of senior figures from the aviation industry. Renowned travel journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker CBE was the celebrity presenter.

Eddie Bell, Chairman of OAG, surprised Alan Whicker by presenting him with the Lifetime Achievement Award, praising his remarkable career spanning almost 60 years.

The Outstanding Service Award went to Maria Benson, manager with Continental Airlines' "We Care" program, for her dedication and inspiring leadership during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Commenting on the awards, Eddie Bell, Chairman of OAG, said, "Congratulations to Cathay Pacific on becoming OAG Airline of the Year 2006 and to the winners in all categories who have been recognized by OAG customers for delivering excellent service for their passengers."

Further Information:

For the results in full please visit the Airline of the Year web site at www.oag.com

All press enquiries/interview requests should be directed to: Margareta Stanley on 0207 930 3636, email dba@nchl.demon.co.uk

US Contact: Kathy Marr 630-515-3240 Notes to Editors About the Awards -- These annual awards were established in 1982. -- The awards are presented by OAG to recognise and celebrate the achievements of airlines and airports around the globe -- The award is a specially commissioned bronze figure called "Spirit of Flight" by sculptor Sara Ingleby-Mackenzie -- These Awards are based on votes polled from a worldwide audience of business travellers who subscribe to OAG travel information and planning products. -- Votes are collected, processed and analysed by an independent research company. -- The OAG Airline of the Year Awards 2006 are sponsored by Le Royal Hotels. -- Sponsors of individual categories: Best Airline based in Asia: sponsored by Asian Aerospace Best Airline based in Central/Eastern Europe: sponsored by TravelPlus Best Europe - Asia/Australasia Airline: sponsored by Odgers Ray & Berndtson Best Transatlantic Airline: sponsored by Heathrow Express & Gatwick Express

About OAG

OAG is a global travel and transport information company.

We have three core activities:

-- managing and distributing information within the passenger and

cargo aviation sectors

-- providing travel information to business travellers

-- providing advertising and promotion opportunities for the

aviation and travel communities.

Our business is underpinned by our data management expertise. We hold a breadth of travel related content and are best known for our airline schedules database. This holds future and historical flight details for 1,000 airlines and more than 3,500 airports. Every ten seconds a flight is updated on the OAG system. Over the coming year we are tracking around 27 million departures.

Using these vast databases, we provide a broad range of multi-lingual products for business and consumer customers, available in virtually any way the customer wants it: Internet, PDA, mobile, digital and print.

We are a private company with 400 employees based in 9 offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

More information about our company, our products and our services is available on our web sites www.oag.com, www.oagdata.com, www.oagcargo.com and www.inforwarding.com

Source: Business Wire

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