Emirates Airline’s in-flight entertainment has received a resounding customer ovation by securing the Best In-flight Entertainment award at the recent Skytrax 2006 World Airline Awards.

This is the second year in a row that Emirates has been chosen for the accolade, based on results of the Airline In-flight Entertain-ment Survey commissioned and conducted by Skytrax Research of London.

The award maintains Emirates’ global leadership in the in-flight entertainment category.

Emirates divisional senior vice president Corporate Communications Mike Simon said: “We continue to implement enhancements to our in-flight entertainment services, ensuring that we exceed our passengers’ expectations.”

The survey results highlight the fact that in-flight entertainment quality is now a highly influential factor in customer evaluation of the overall travel experience. In addition, the importance of in-flight entertainment to the typical long-haul passenger is a feature that carries increasing weight in airline choice.

The Skytrax survey also identified that audio and video on-demand (AVOD) is among the top entertainment features highly favoured by passengers. Many Emirates aircraft are equipped with AVOD through its signature in-flight entertainment system, ice (information communications entertainment), providing over 600 channels of entertainment.

Skytrax marketing director Peter Miller remarked: “ This is a product area where there continues to be an increasing level of competition, combined with increasing passenger expectations.”

Emirates flies to over 80 destinations in more than 55 countries, including Malta. The airline operates four flights weekly from Malta to Dubai via Larnaca, Cyprus, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday on A330-200.