Business and luxury leisure travellers gave Emirates top honours in the annual Global Traveler's GT Tested Awards for 2006, naming the airline "Best Airline for First Class" for the second year in a row. Global Traveler's annual GT Tested Awards is one of the world's most comprehensive business and leisure traveller polls, showcasing the best and brightest in airlines, hotels, destinations and travel service providers, as voted by magazine readers.

Emirates was also recently named "Best First Class in the World" and "Best Business Class to the Middle East" by Business Traveller readers in the 2006 Readers' Choice Best in Business Travel Awards as well as "Best Airline for Flights to the Middle East" from Executive Travel magazine's 2006 Leading Edge Awards readers' survey.

"Emirates is honoured to accept these awards and to be recognized by these prestigious publications, whose readers are strong opinion leaders within the travel industry," said Nigel Page, Emirates Senior Vice President, the Americas. "With the recent launch of the new generation of lie-flat Business Class seats aboard our Boeing 777s, we remain committed to providing outstanding in-flight experiences to all our passengers. Customer service has always played an important role in the growth of the airline, and these awards serve as significant validation from the discerning first and business travelling community."

Emirates introduced the lie-flat massage seats only in Business Class on Flight EK204, the airline's non-stop Boeing 777-300ER service between New York and Dubai on October 1. In 2004, when Emirates launched passenger service from North America, it drew international attention and praise for its fully-enclosed First Class suites where passengers enjoy private, a la carte dining, all the features of Emirates' award-winning entertainment service and other unique amenities.

Photograph: Nigel Page (center), Emirates Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations, the Americas, accepts the prestigious Global Traveler Award for "Best Airline for First Class" at the ceremony in New York, joined by television actress Cynthia Nixon (left) and Francis Gallagher (right), Publisher and CEO, Global Traveler magazine.