Boeing is today (Tuesday 19 June 2007) celebrating after picking up an unprecedented three trophies at last night’s relaunched Flight Awards.

President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Scott Carson, was the big winner – being named Personality of the Year.

But the US giant also took top spot in the categories for Best Air Transport Product with the 787, and Best Defence Product with the EA-18G Growler.

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Nearly 400 guests saw Carson receive the accolade in a glittering ceremony at the Pavillon d’Armenonville in Paris, and Alain Bellemare, president and CEO of Pratt & Whitney Canada, take the Publisher's Award for outstanding contribution to aerospace.

Flight group editor premium services, Kieran Daly, said: “In the 13 previous years of the awards no company has ever won three trophies in one year. It’s a testament to Boeing’s extremely strong performance in the last couple of years that they have achieved this.”

Kevin Lohner, a PhD student at Stanford University, California won the Boeing Engineering Student of the Year award in a category launched last year.

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For the first time, Flight sought nominations for the four product categories via the www.flightglobal.com website. Readers then voted online to decide which nominations were shortlisted to go before the expert panel of judges that decided the winners.

In the people categories, Flight’s own Awards Committee of senior editors chose the winners. And a trio of retired eminent Boeing engineers decided the Student Engineer of the Year.

Carson took his award for his leadership role in turning around Boeing’s sales performance after his 2004 appointment to the Commercial Airplanes division.

And Bellemare’s award was also a turnaround story – Flight credits him with developing and leading the visionary strategy that has culminated in the enormous success of the PW600.

In other categories, the senior management team of UK independent airline Flybe won best Air Transport Person or Team for the acquisition of British Airways’ BA Connect unit.

Best Defence Person or Team was the personnel of 46th Air Brigade, Italian Air Force for their deployment of the Lockheed Martin C-130J on relief and support missions.

In business aviation, Honeywell’s Integrated Primary Flight Display was best product, and the flight department of Wal-Mart Stores topped the Person or Team category.

Rockwell Collins’ Multiscan weather radar was best product in the Propulsion, Systems and Avionics category; and the Airbus flight-test team on the A380 won the person or team category.

Source: Flight International