Japan Airlines (JAL) has been honored with the World Savers Award by the American edition of Condé Nast Traveler for being the most socially responsible airline amongst its peers in the category. The award seeks to recognize companies in the travel industry that have generously contributed back to society through its various business activities, particularly in the five key aspects of education programs, wildlife conservation, poverty alleviation, environmental or cultural preservation and health initiatives.

Contending with thirty-six finalists who were narrowed down from 100 applicants, Japan Airlines emerged the overall winner in the airline category - a new category added to the award this year, for having a program in every assessment area. The diverse approach by JAL to fulfill its responsibility as a corporate citizen scored it a total of 81.5 points out of 100 possible points by a panel of 20 distinguished academics, environmentalists and industry experts.

Japan Airlines was lauded in particular, for providing free transportation of supplies and aide personnel to Pakistan in October 2005 and to Indonesia in December 2004 and May 2006 after both regions were hit by severe earthquakes. On the environmental front, an aspect in which JAL is especially active in, JAL's ambition to drastically reduce the amount of fuel consumed and the amount of green-house gases emitted in the course of its business, leading to proactive research into the use of biofuel and overall weight reduction of its aircraft through measures such as use of lighter-weight material for in-flight items, further contributed to the carrier's recognition by Condé Nast Traveler.

JAL is now flying its ‘Eco Jet’ from London Heathrow*. The Boeing 777-300 aircraft is painted in a green livery designed to show the airline’s commitment to environmental issues (link to http://www.jal.com/en/environment/). In addition, on this aircraft JAL will be serving wine in recyclable lightweight bottles, a first for an Asian carrier, a service, which will be gradually introduced across the entire JAL international network. The wine will be bottled in recyclable PET bottles that look identical to the original glass packaging except one seventh the weight of glass bottles the same size. The lighter bottles help to reduce the weight of the aircraft, thereby lessening fuel consumption.

Japan Airlines is extremely honoured to be spotlighted by the esteemed travel magazine for its CSR efforts. Standing firm by the corporate policy to contribute to the sound development of society, Japan Airlines will continue striving for symbiosis with the world and the environment.