OREANDA-NEWS. April 07, 2010. The 13th Award Ceremony for prize and diploma winners of the national airline award Wings of Russia 2009 took place in the Ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, with VTB Bank serving once again as the general sponsor of the event.

For more than 12 years, the Wings of Russia award has been the only acclaimed industry prize recognizing excellence of domestic airlines in development of the country’s civil aviation. The award is conferred upon the close voting results of the members of the Public Council, which in this instance included about 100 independent experts in air transportation, with two VTB Bank representatives: Dmitry Sergeev, Managing Director of VTB Corporate Segment 1, and Petr Seleznev, Director of VTB Corporate Segment 1. This year, 48 Russian airlines participated in the award.

The award has been developing year by year: the award ceremony has been improved, new nominations have been introduced, and the Public Council has been expanded. The major innovation of this year’s award was the new nomination process: from now on, any member of the Public Council can nominate airlines. Moreover, it was the first time when 13 largest Russian travel companies competed for the title “Tourist Company of the Year, Partner of Air Transport”.

This year, the prizes were awarded to Transaero Airlines, Aeroflot – Russian Airlines, Ural Airlines, Kavminvodyavia, KrasAvia, AirBridgeCargo, Jet – 2000, Utair. The winner in “Tourist Company of the Year, Partner of Air Transport” nomination was Tez Tour.