Press Release

Issued by Russian United Business Aviation Association.

September 11, 2017

On the 6th September 2017 during the RUBAA Business Aviation Forum in Moscow a presentation of the second Wings of Business Awards for the highest achievements in the field of business aviation was held. Anna Serezhkina, RUBAA executive director and the inspiration behind the Awards and Mikhail Titov, director general of Bizav Systems Ltd. which will again perform as the project partner, described how the Awards will be structured this time.

At the first Awards ceremony, winners were named in 13 nominations, and an exclusive reception was organized at the Moscow Golf Club. But this year some changes are taking place.

The new regulations published at www.wingsaward.ru foresee the same number of nominations.. The regulations and the list of nominations were approved and published in April 2017 and posted on the Awards webpage. The contents of the nominations were partly changed in consideration of the first event and the market structure.

The key positions are left without changes; business aviation airline, general aviation operator, foreign business aviation airline, maintenance company, flight support company, broker, service company, project of the year in business aviation of Russia. However, to reflect the realities of the market, and also to provide opportunities for more flexible self positioning by participants, the RUBAA board has taken the decision to revise some articles of the regulation.

Thus catering for business aviation has received its own separate category; under the infrastructure for business aviation category FBOs are now split into two nominations, Russian federal and regional cities; and business aviation aircraft will be evaluated not as “the best” but as the “most popular” and in three categories: light, mid-size and heavy jets. The Award for the contribution to the development of business aviation in Russia is also a novelty, where the winner will be specified by RUBAA board without open voting.

“The made amendments have been discussed seriously for a long time and I see them as more than reasonable," says Anna Serezhkina, RUBAA executive director.

"Catering companies which are widely presented in the market will compete between themselves, and not with cleaning or air training providers, and airports not located in Moscow or St. Petersburg will have a chance to get the prize by not competing with major airports. This is probably not a huge step but it is a reason for development and growth and an opportunity to demonstrate our Russian infrastructure. That is why we do invite everyone to send in applications," she continues.

The winners of the 12 categories (except for the nomination for the contribution to the development of business aviation in Russia) will be specified by RUBAA members. Exactly the association represented by its board and all without exception members.

On the 11th September the organization committee will start to accept applications from companies. They will be published on the Awards website on the 1st November and then the first voting stage will start, the online voting, which will last until the 31st January 2018.

This year online voting will be secured from robots which some participants used last year. But even though some of these tactics were not fair, the subsequent RUBAA members personal voting put everything in place and all these efforts had no effect. This year in addition the meaning of online votes will also be reduced to 10%.

Mikhail Titov is sure that online voting is necessary: “Voting on the website is a live process and something is happening every day. The number of votes changes instantly on the icon of every participant, and participants place their pages on social media asking their friends and colleagues to visit the website and vote for them. For some it is a real election campaign! This all creates some movement around the project and the webpage draws attention.

"Right after the 31st January 2018 all votes will be fixed by the jury members and RUBAA members will make their choice. They will decide who wins and the results will be announced at the ceremony in February. All results will be published as a unique document which can be provided upon request., and the jury which will be formed by board members, will provide exact calculations.”

The fact that RUBAA established the Awards is the logical and the only reasonable solution.

The purpose of the Awards is to support and reward those who represent business aviation market in Russia. Possessing such an award is the strongest marketing instrument for a commercial organization. That is why it is extremely important that choosing the winners and introducing the Awards is made by an independent organization, which does not have any interest in any of possible results and which does not offer any commercial service on the market. RUBAA, the business aviation association, is exactly such a structure.

Unlike other similar projects, the Wings of Business Award does not promote any interests or advertise any service. Variants of the award organization have been discussed for several years and were formalized and realized by Mikhail Titov, the head of Business Aviation Systems and vice-president of RUBAA over several years.

Anna Serezhkina and Mikhail Titov have one opinion: “When making the decision to participate it is important to remember that not becoming the winner does not mean loosing. The Russian business aviation industry is pretty young but can be already proud of its own success! All participants are the contemporary portrait of the industry and everyone without exception is a winner. That is why we are keen to receive the applications and of course look forward to seeing the guests on the 16th February 2018 at Golden Palace in Moscow! And we wish with our heart both in business, and in the competition for the Wings of Business statuette!”