Emirates Airlines has received the accolade for best in-flight entertainment system at an awards ceremony for the sixth consecutive year. The award for World’s Best Airline Inflight Entertainment was handed over at the prestigious 2010 Skytrax World Airline Awards. The ceremony was held in Hamburg.

In 2003 Emirates introduced its information, communications and entertainment system, or ice, and has since then concentrated on continually updating it in terms of the quality of its content and technical innovation. For many other airlines, Emirates’ ice has become the benchmark against which to measure their own in-flight entertainment.

Ice is accessible on over 80 per cent of the aircraft in the Emirates fleet. Through the system passengers have access to 1200 entertainment channels. 230 of these show a selection of films from around the globe. Over the past year the airline has updated its content by including movies available in more than 20 languages from 15 countries around the world.

Emirates was the first airline to introduce closed caption availability on programmes for any passengers who are hard of hearing. In 1992 the carrier was also the first airline to be able to announce that screens would be available on the back of every seat on every aircraft in its fleet.

The Skytrax awards ceremony is seen by many as the top awards ceremony for the airline industry. The awards are given out according to the results of an airline survey which takes place between July and April. This year the survey contained the views of nearly 18 million air travellers from over 100 different countries.