Asiana Airlines won the Mercury Award, which has been acclaimed as the Oscar award in the air carrier industry’s in-flight service sector for its mask pact service provided during the flight.

The award is being managed by the International Travel Catering Association (ITAC) given to the top in-flight service annually among in-flight services provided by all major airlines in the world and widely recognized for its integrity around the world.

The Mercury Award is given to top winners in the nine categories of the in-flight services by airlines and the winners are announced after three months of on-the-spot inspection by ITAC from November, 2012 and the announcement of the winners took place on Feb. 15 in Nice, France. 

The review of the in-flight services focuses on such key points as creativity, reformative nature of services including qualities and customer satisfaction on those services. Asiana Airlines won the top award in the category one of the in-flight services.

The mask pack service is one of the charming services provided by Asiana to protect the skins of passengers from being dried up during flights and up until now some 40,000 passengers have used the mask pact service.

In the meantime, Asiana has decided to support the overseas performances of K-Pop artists and signed an MOU with YG Entertainment. Director Ryu Kwang-hee signed an MOU with President Yang Min-sok of YG Entertainment on Jan. 29 at the Asiana Airlines Head Office in Osoe-dong, Seoul, under which the airline will provide airline tickets for artists and their companions of the entertainment agency going abroad special discount air tickets or some times free tickets.

On the other hand, YG Entertainment will show the logo of Asiana Airlines during performances of its artists abroad including brochures and ads, especially, in the public relations booths in the concerts to support the marketing activities of Asiana Airlines.

Director Ryu said the tie up with YG Entertainment  would help expand the K-POP’s popularity abroad as it is in the center of the Hallyu fad now sweeping the world and Asiana could do its part to support it, especially, to boost the position of the national brand of Korea around the world.

Asiana has also been helping CJ E&M, another entertainment agency, to hold its artists’ global concerts under its brand name of M-Live as its official supporter as an evangelist for the Hallyu fad now sweeping the world and at the same time elevate Korea’s national brand image.

In the meantime, Asiana won on Feb. 11 the award for the 2012 Best Overall Airline in the World from  Business Traveler, a travel magazine published in the United States at the Warwick Hotel in New York.

The award makes Asiana to win five such awards from five world famous travel magazines such as Air Transport World in 2009, Skytrax in 2010, Global Traveler in 2011 and Premier Traveler in 2012.

The award from Business Traveler is given to the airlines that provided the best service to its passengers in such areas as reservation, airport service, in-flight service, and others for 2012 and Asiana got the award due to it’s  new idea for its first-class seats named the “Oz First Suit” and the business-class the “Oz Quadra Smartium” with its high-tech interior facilities on its planes and excellent services rendered by stewardesses during the flights.

Business Traveler commissions Mediamark Research Inc. every year to make surveys of its readers and selects the award winners in a fair manner and three airlines won the Best Overall Airline in the World award for 2012 including Asiana, Singapore airlines and British Airways.

In the meantime, Asiana won the Best Overall Inflight Experience in the World for seven years in a row and the Best Overall Customer Service-airline- award  four times.