Emirates airlines has been awarded the first-ever Marco Polo award 2003, Italy's travel industry 'Oscar', in a ceremony organised by one of Italy's top satellite TV travel shows. The carrier was named 'Best Airline' in a voting by Italian tour operators and travel agents.
Emirates was overall winner of the 'Airline' category, one of five in the poll, ahead of Alitalia and Lufthansa. Marco Polo launched the awards at this year's BIT International Tourism. Massimo Massimi, area manager Italy, Malta and Iberian Peninsula at Emirates, received the award from Tania Zamparo, Miss Italia 2000, and from Dr Corrado Azzolini, editorial manager at Marco Polo. Massimi commented: "We are particularly pleased that the travel industry in Italy regards us as 'Best Airline', thus confirming our place as a provider of award-winning services for all our customers and as a company striving continuously to improve the products we offer." Emirates flies daily form Dubai to Rome and four times a week from Dubai to Milan. Recently the airline unveiled expansion plans with 11 new aircraft joining the fleet by the end of this year, to boost seating capacity by 25 per cent, launching new inflight services and products, adding more flights on many existing routes. The airline, is boosting its services in the Gulf and Middle East region with a programme of extra flights to be introduced between now and July. Doha will eventually have four flights daily, Muscat flights will increase to twice daily, Tehran will get an extra four flights weekly, Sanaa an extra two weekly and Dammam and Kuwait get one extra weekly flight each. Emirates is set to go the extra mile, so travellers on the three routes from Dubai to Germany - Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf - can now travel a little further. The airline is offering all first and business class passengers, flying from Dubai, a personal chauffeur service to whisk them to any German home or business address within 40 kilometres of the arrival airport. Emirates passengers already enjoy this service on arrival in Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Nice and Paris as well as in Dubai, from where they can use it to travel to any part of the UAE.