Darwin International Airport was announced as the overall winner of the second heat of this year's Routes Airport Marketing Awards last night at a spectacular networking evening at the Shangri-La Hotel, Chengdu. Over 600 aviation professionals were gathered to witness the presentation of the awards and to take part in the largest Routes Asia event to date.

The Routes Airport Marketing Awards have become synonymous with recognising and rewarding the highest standards of marketing activities undertaken by airports. The awards work on the core principle that the people who are best placed to judge an airport's marketing activities are the airlines. Airlines from the Asia region have spent the last few months voting for the airports they felt deserved to win and their votes were based on an airport's marketing activities over the past year.

The winner, Darwin International Airport, demonstrated a clear route development strategy and implementation process in their awards submission and illustrated how they have worked clearly with their airline customers. Darwin has achieved a milestone new route and steady passenger growth to complete a good 12 months work for a regional airport of its size. Winning this regional heat now enables them to be automatically shortlisted for the World Routes Awards due to be held in Abu Dhabi later this year.

David Stroud, Executive Vice President Airports, Routes said: "We are delighted that Darwin has won this regional heat of our awards. It is amazing what they have achieved in just 12 months, particularly after the delivery of Silk Air, and we feel this acknowledgement is fully deserved. Darwin is a first time nominee and it's great to see them listed here alongside the big players such as Changi and Sydney, this just goes to show that these awards are not about the size of an airport and Darwin will now compete in the World Routes Airport Marketing Awards later this year."

Speaking just after receiving the award, Jim Parashos, Director Airline and Airport Services for Darwin International Airport enthused: "Wow! What a fantastic recognition of one of the world's smaller regional gateways. We are absolutely thrilled with this achievement. Darwin Airport has had a clear strategy that has been focussed on delivering increased full-service airlines to Australia's top end. We are undergoing a AU$50 million expansion, a major investment for a facility of our size which handles around 2.3 million passengers per annum, and this will double our busy hour capacity. I would like to thank airports in our region for setting the bar high and making us work hard, our hard working aviation development and marketing team and finally UBM Aviation, Routes for recognising and rewarding Darwin International Airport's hard work."

The Routes Airport Marketing Awards were split into 3 sub-regional categories; China & North East Asia, Middle East & India and Oceania & South East Asia. Beijing Capital International Airport was crowned the winner in the China & North East Asia category with GVK - Mumbai International Airport taking the top slot in the Middle East and India Category. A complete list of the nominated airports in each category can be found below:

Oceania & South East Asia

Winner - Darwin International Airport
Highly Commended - Auckland Airport
Highly Commended - Changi Airport Group
Melbourne Airport
Sydney Airport

China & North East Asia

Winner - Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd.
Highly Commended - Shanghai International Airport Company Ltd
Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport
Narita Airport Corporation

Middle East & India

Winner - GVK - Mumbai International Airport
Highly Commended - Abu Dhabi Airports Company
Highly Commended - Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd
GMR Hyderabad International Airport
Bangalore International Airport

The ceremony began with a special achievement award presented to Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CDIA) for their contribution to aviation and huge achievements in 2011. Over the past 12 months CDIA have attracted a new air service from Etihad Airways and experienced significant passenger growth taking them to the position of fifth largest airport in China achieving a throughput of 18 million passengers. For these reasons the panel of judges wanted to recognize the achievements of this year's event host.

Contributed by UBM Aviation