MONTREAL, June 9 /CNW Telbec/ - enRoute, Air Canada's inflight
publication, recently won 10 awards at the 2009 National Magazine Awards,
including a Gold for Art Direction for an Entire Issue - Reanna Evoy, The Food
Issue; Gold for Travel - Noah Richler, St. Petersburg the Great. Other awards
include three Silver: Best Single Issue - The Food Issue; Photojournalism &
Photo Essay - Lorne Bridgman, The Impossible City; Service: Lifestyle - Chris
Johns, Sweet Spots: Canada's Best New Restaurants.
    enRoute also captured 5 honorable mention awards: Travel - Don Gillmor,
Paradise Found; Travel - Philip Preville, The Impossible City; Illustration -
Pascal Blanchet, Come Fly with Me; Photojournalism & Photo Essay - John
Cullen, Paradise Found; Still Life Photography - Andre Doyon, Kitchen Aids
    The results are among the best ever achieved by enRoute at the National
Magazine Awards, Canada's most prestigious awards program for magazines.
    "It is an honour for Air Canada's in-flight magazine to be recognized for
excellence by the magazine publishing industry of Canada," said Louise
McKenven, Senior Director, Marketing at Air Canada. "Air Canada is proud to
bring the best in Canadian magazine journalism to the 33 million customers we
serve world wide every year. This recognition reflects the importance that we
place on providing our customers with a quality travel experience. enRoute
magazine is a key element of Air Canada's overall bilingual in-flight
entertainment offering. It encompasses hundreds of hours of complimentary
enRoute TV, movies and albums at each customer's seat, including selections
from the enRoute Film Festival, and is now available to an even wider audience
online at enroute.aircanada.com."
    "We're very proud of the enRoute staff," said Paul FitzGerald, Account
Director at Spafax. "Air Canada enRoute continues to attract Canada's finest
talent - both on its staff and among the country's freelancers. And the
support we receive from Air Canada itself is invaluable."
    "Spafax is dedicated to excellence," added Katrin Kopvillem, Managing
Director and Publisher, Spafax Canada. "As publishers of Air Canada's highly
regarded in-flight magazine that literally travels the country and the world,
we couldn't be more pleased with the results from the National Magazine
Awards."
    Air Canada enRoute is published by Spafax, one of the world's leading
custom publishers and providers of in-flight media, with offices in eight
cities around the world. Spafax is part of the specialist communications
division of WPP.

    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 13th largest commercial airline in
the world and serves 33 million customers annually. 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. As well, customers can collect Aeroplan miles for future awards
through Canada's leading loyalty program.
    In 2008, the readers of Business Traveler magazine voted Air Canada "Best
In-Flight Services in North America," "Best Airline for Business Class Service
in North America" and "Best North American Airline for International Travel."

    The National Magazine Awards Foundation (NMAF) is a bilingual,
not-for-profit institution whose mission is to recognize excellence in the
content and creation of Canadian magazines through an annual program of
awards. The awards gala takes place each June in Toronto. Each year the NMAF
receives more than 2000 submissions and relies on over 200 volunteer judges to
evaluate the entries and award gold and silver winners in 40 categories. For
more information visit www.magazine-awards.com