Aviapartner best handler at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - for the second year in a row

Amsterdam/Brussels - 20 March 2009: Aviapartner has been honoured for the second time in a row with the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Ground Handling Award 2008 in recognition of its outstanding performance in operations handling and customer focus.

The award was presented by Ad Rutten, Executive Vice President & COO of Schiphol Group, during the official Schiphol Aviation Award Ceremony held on 12 March 2009.

Every year, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol awards clients and business partners who have stood out from other companies through their innovative operational management or excellent performance. Last year already, Aviapartner had been honoured with the same Ground Handling Award.

The awards are divided into six categories: the Punctuality Award, the Jan Dellaert Award (named after Jan Dellaert, who is known as 'the father of Schiphol', the airport's founder and first Station Manager), the Environmental Capacity Award, the Cargo Award, the Passenger Airline Award, and the Ground Handling Award.

For the Ground Handling Award, the criteria taken into account are customer friendliness (passenger perception), first bag/last bag delivery performance, participation in operational meetings, on-time performance, and safety incidents. For all criteria Aviapartner's results were well ahead of those of the other handlers.

Aviapartner's passenger and aircraft handling operation at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was launched in July 1999 and is the fourth largest station within the Aviapartner handling network (after Brussels, Nice, and Munich), with 21,223 flights and 3,856,626 passengers handled in 2008.

Aviapartner recently signed four new handling contracts at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with Malaysia Airlines, Turkuaz Airlines, Onur Air, and Wind Jet.