Mumbai, Sept. 11 : The Chairman of Jet Airways, India’s premier private international airline, Naresh Goyal, was honoured with the ‘Business Person of the Year’ award at the prestigious UK Trade and Investment India Business Awards 2008, here on Tuesday.

This distinction was conferred upon Goyal for his significant contribution to India-UK business relations and for making the UK a strategic and pivotal destination in Jet Airways’ aggressive international expansion plans.

Accepting the award from British High Commissioner Sir Richard Stagg, before an august gathering of senior business leaders from the two countries, Goyal said: “I am deeply honoured and humbled, to receive this award. At Jet Airways, we are committed to re-defining the international travel experience with our acclaimed in-flight product and service standards. UK was our first long-haul venture and continues to be popular with our international travellers, for both business and leisure."

Jet Airways currently operates four daily services to London Heathrow from three gateway points in India- twice daily in Mumbai, and daily from Delhi and Amritsar respectively.

The UK Trade and Investment India Business Awards are a recognition and celebration of the UK-Indo business partnership, specifically in terms of inward investment, collaborative business partnership, entrepreneurship and innovation.

UK Trade and Investment is the UK Government’s international business development agency.

Jet Airways currently operates a fleet of 85 aircraft, which includes 10 Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, 10 Airbus A330-200 aircraft, 54 classic and next generation Boeing
737-400/700/800/900 aircraft and 11 modern ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft.

With an average fleet age of 4.45 years, the airline has one of the youngest aircraft fleet in the world. Jet Airways operates over 395 flights daily.

Flights to 64 destinations span the length and breadth of India and beyond, including New York (both JFK and Newark), San Francisco, Toronto, Brussels, London
(Heathrow), Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The airline plans to extend its international operations to other cities in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia in phases with the introduction of additional wide-body aircraft into its fleet. (ANI)