Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has won the award for “Best Business Class” at the 2011 Biz Travel Forum in Milan.

In its ninth year, the Biz Travel Forum is a travel trade exhibition, involving services and technology for business travel. The event is supported by Uvet American Express Corporate Travel.

Travel managers, human resource directors, facility managers, and travel buyers of medium and large companies involved in the Italian travel management field voted for the award.

The forum has become an important point of reference for all the sectors in the Italian transportation and travel industry, including airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies and those in the GDS booking system.

Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways’ Chief Commercial Officer, said: “This is yet another wonderful recognition of how well our product strategy and service philosophy work for our guests and to win this award reinforces our ongoing commitment to excellence.  It is great to see investments paying back and leading us to success in attracting more and more of the premium travel market in Italy.”

Etihad Airways’ Pearl Business Class features a seat that converts to a fully flat bed. New advanced Business Class seats have now been introduced, which are longer and wider, all with direct aisle access in a 1-2-1 configuration. The seats include larger meal and cocktail tables, luxurious leather headrests, armrests and ottomans upholstered by Poltrona Frau, ambient lighting with dimmer settings, more storage space and a state-of-the-art Panasonic eX2 inflight entertainment system with a 15.4 inch personal screen.

For an even more personalised service, the Pearl Business cabin also has a dedicated Food and Beverage Manager, providing expertise and guidance to guests on all culinary matters – a key winning component of the airline’s inspired service concept.