Ｄｒａｇｏｎａｉｒ Ｈｏｎｏｕｒｅｄ Ｗｉｔｈ Ｗｈｉｔｔｌｅ Ｓａｆｅｔｙ Ａｗａｒｄ ２００５

Dragonair has been named the recipi-ent of the Whittle Safety Award 2005，bestowed by the International Federationof Airworthiness (IFA). The awardrecognises the airline's development of aunique Aircraft Technical Managementmodel that has an excellent record of safety.

Receiving the award on behalf of Dragonair at a joint meeting of the FlightSafety Foundation， the IFA and the Inter-national Air Travel Association in Moscow， Russia， David Lui， GeneralManager， Engineering， said: \"This is atremendous honour for Dragonair， onethat we share with our excellent partnersin the Aircraft Technical Managemen tinitiative. The superb level of collabora-tion of all the involved parties has beenthe key to the success of this innovativemodel.\"

Dragonair introduced its AircraftTechnical Management model in 2000 toprovide technical engineering support forits fleet of Airbus passenger aircraft andBoeing 747 freighters.

Under the model， the airline's ownIntegrated Operations Centre and Main-tenance Operations Department handlethe day-to-day core functions of aircraftmaintenance， while the service providersoffer back-of-house support. The systemis underpinned by stringent partner selec-tion criteria and a unique collaborationmodel that provides established channelsand procedures for the Dragonair team towork with its technical and inventorymanagement service providers， compris-ing SIA Engineering Company， SR-Tech-nics and Cathay Pacific Engineering.

The purpose of the Whittle SafetyAward， which is named after the UK's SirFrank Whittle， co-inventor of the jetengine， is to honour the world's aerospacecommunity's most outstanding achieve-ment in the field of air safety. Dragonairis the first Hong Kong airline to receivethe award.

\"The award is international recogni-tion of the aviation engineering expertisethat we have in Hong Kong，\" said Mr.Lui. \"A number of airlines have showninterest in the model， so it has the poten-tial to contribute to better air safety pro-cedures worldwide.\"

Dragonair is a Hong Kong-basedairline， operating a fleet of 11 A330-300s，six A321 s and 10 A320s， in addition tofour Boeing 747-200/-300 freighters， onewet-leased A300B4 freighter and onewet-leased Boeing 747-400 freighter. Theairline's passenger network covers 31destinations across the Asia-Pacificregion， including 22 destinations in ChinaMainland; while its cargo network con-nects the markets of Europe， the MiddleEast， the United States， Japan，Taiwan and China Mainland.