Yemisi Izuora
Dana Air has been announced as the airline of the year 2017, at the 8th edition of the Nigerian Aviation Awards and Presidential Dinner, held recently at the Oriental Hotel Lagos.
The airline’s CEO,Jacky Hathiramani, Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa also bagged the CEO of the year, and Aviation Corporate Promotions Personality of the year 2017 awards respectively, while the airline’s crew members; Collins Ginika and Chiogo Okani, won the King and Queen of the Air contest at the event.
The king and queen of the air contest is a newly- introduced initiative by the organizers of the NIGAV awards, where the various domestic airlines’ crew get to answer questions on how they handle safety issues, ensure comfort of passengers and how to be a good crew member.
The duo from Dana Air, also performed their first assignment at the event by presenting cash gifts to an orphanage present at the event. They have also become ambassadors of the NIGAV awards and will represent the industry at various aviation events for their intelligent display at the awards and mastery of civil aviation regulations
The Media and Communications Manager of Dana Air, Kingsley Ezenwa, who received the award on behalf of the airline said,” we thank the organizers of the Nigerian Aviation Awards for recognizing our efforts towards providing safe, reliable and affordable air transport in Nigeria, and we wish to assure our guests of our unwavering commitment towards maintaining our standards and upping the ante on all fronts.”
On the CEO of the year award, Kingsley said” a big thank you to all those who voted our indefatigable CEO, Mr Jacky Hathiramani. Our CEO is a detribalized Nigerian and one who believes in the maxim – slow and steady wins the race. His managerial acumen is second to none, and doesn’t believe in noise making but doing things right and creatively too.”
Speaking further on Dana Air crew winning the King and Queen of the skies contest, Kingsley said, ”our crew winning the king and queen contest organised for the crew of all domestic airlines, only shows the difference in standards , procedures and the level of training that our crew have received. They have also shown great knowledge of the job and smartness, and we are proud of them.”
Having flown over 2.7 million passengers in the last 9 years of its operations, Dana Air is one of Nigeria’s leading airlines with over 27 daily flights from Lagos to Abuja, PH, UYO and Owerri.
The airline is reputed for its innovative online products , world-class in-flight and customer service and unrivaled ontime performance.