Air Canada voted top honours by readers of Business Traveler Magazine

- Best In-Flight Services in North America

- Best Airline for Business Class Service in North America

- Best North American Airline for International Travel

MONTREAL, Dec. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Air Canada has been voted by the readers of Business Traveler magazine as offering the Best In-Flight Services in North America, as well as being the Best Airline for Business Class Service in North America and Best North American Airline for International Travel. Results of the 20th annual readership survey conducted by the magazine, one of the world's leading authorities on business travel, were revealed at a ceremony last night in Los Angeles. Star Alliance, of which Air Canada is a founding member, was voted best Airline Alliance Program. In total, Star Alliance partners earned top honours in ten categories. Complete results of this year's reader survey appear in the magazine's December/January issue.

"We're thrilled that Air Canada has been selected by some of the world's most discerning, well-travelled executives as the best airline in North America for our in-flight services, our business class product and for international travel," said Ben Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. "We have been receiving extremely positive feedback from customers on the new additions to our fleet and the major enhancements we've made to our in-flight amenities and travel experience in general. This award is testament to the hard work of Air Canada's employees to offer our customers a superior product."

Air Canada has renewed its international and North American fleets with new Boeing 777 and Embraer aircraft. Concurrently, Air Canada has all but completed a major refurbishment program of its existing fleets to offer all customers brand new seats and personal entertainment systems at each seat, fleet wide on North American and international routes. New fleet-wide amenities include digital quality in-seat monitors with touch-screen controls offering a wide selection of audio and video on demand programming, standard in-seat power within reach of every customer and industry leading lie-flat beds in Executive First suites, Air Canada's international business class service.

In addition, Air Canada customers benefit from a simplified airport experience for connecting between U.S.-Canada transborder flights and either domestic Canada or international overseas flights world wide, via new facilities all under one roof at its main Toronto hub.

Montréal-based Air Canada provides scheduled and charter air transportation for passengers and cargo to more than 170 destinations on five continents. Canada's flag carrier is the 14th largest commercial airline in the world and serves 33 million customers annually with a fleet consisting of 335 aircraft. Air Canada is a founding member of Star Alliance, providing the world's most comprehensive air transportation network for Canadian domestic, transborder and international travel. Air Canada aircraft offer customers individualized seatback in-flight entertainment systems with hundreds of hours of digital audio-visual entertainment.