Cathay Pacific Airways was named “Airline of the Year 2009” in the world’s largest passenger survey, conducted by renowned British research organization “Skytrax”, on April 1, 2009. The premium air carrier from Hong Kong was also awarded the title of “Best Airline in Asia”.

The awards were presented to Cathay Pacific at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, the leading trade fair for airliner interiors, entertainment and communication, where Skytrax was celebrating the 10th anniversary of the World Airline Awards. The 2009 awards were based on the annual World Airline Survey run by Skytrax, which was conducted between August 2008 and March 2009.

Modern lighting technology simulates natural sunlight

The design of Finnair aircraft cabin interiors is being completely renewed. The changes will affect seat textiles, carpeting, blinds, lighting and wall panel surfaces. The new interior makes its debut on Finnair’s new Airbus A330 aircraft on the flight to New York leaving today, Monday April 6. Finnair will take delivery of four Airbus A330 aircraft over the course of the current year, and the new interior will feature in all of them.

INAIR Aviation Brokerage, an affiliate of INTRA Tourism group, commercialized over 80,000 seat in 2008.
Inair offers service to all destinations around the globe, particularly between Turkey and Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the Middle East countries. As indicated by founder Mr Karaoglu and sales manager Mrs Cimen, InAir is looking towards reaching 100,000 utilized seats in 2009.

With the reputation from its successful operations in both, domestic and international markets, InAir, which organizes charter flights on the basis of seats or whole aircraft for tour operators, has a voice in the sector and cooperates closely with Atlas Jet, Best Air, Corendon, Free bird, Pegasus, Sun Express and Turkish Airlines.

The traditional name fits, indeed: With 404,491 registered international guests generating 3.24 million overnight stays and providing a total of 453 million US dollars in foreign exchange proceeds during an average stay of eight days, the Yemen achieved an increase in visitors of 6.61 percent in 2008.

The country on the south western tip of the Arabian Peninsula recorded significant growth in European visitors: 35,489 travelers made for an increase in arrivals of seven percent (2007: 33,079). This makes Europe the third-most important incoming market now, following the undisputed front-runner Middle East, as well as Asia, which showed negative growth in the previous year.

Frankfurt – It seems like this year’s Formula 1 TM SingTel Singapore Grand Prix will be able to catch up to the outstanding success of 2008. Despite the ubiquitous global economic crisis, tickets are in great demand. Especially those for the Paddock Club – the exclusive Formula 1 area with access to the pit lane – are greatly sought-after, with 60% already sold out. Seeing how the tickets have only been available since February 6 and are already in such high demand, fans of Formula 1 should quickly secure theirs.

There’s some cause for cautious optimism in the tourism and travel industry across the Asia Pacific region, according to PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Director John Koldowski.

The PATA Tourism Forecasts 2009-2011, to be published this month, suggest growth in international arrivals for many destinations across the region – despite the global economic downturn. The Forecasts indicate a very mixed bag of results with significant variations across Asia Pacific.