Please enjoy the March issue and pay particular attention to the recap article featuring the winners of Global Traveler’s 2015 GT Tested Reader Survey awards, Wines on the Wing competition and the Airline and Hotel of the Year. On Dec. 8, 2015, we enjoyed a spectacular night on the rooftop of The Peninsula Beverly Hills. The hotel’s managing director, Offer Nissenbaum, and I took a calculated risk and booked the rooftop pool area to celebrate the fifth anniversary of hosting the awards at The Peninsula and the 12th anniversary of the awards themselves. The weather was smashing, and many guests stayed late to chat by the moon’s glow after the ceremony.

Kudos to The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. for taking several key categories and Hotel of the Year, and a hip-hip-hooray for Turkish Airlines as Airline of the Year. We honored many other notables, such as United Airlines and Sheraton Latin America, each earning awards for 12 consecutive years. View more winners in the article; as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Airbus proudly took Best Aircraft Type with the Airbus A380 and sponsored the cocktail reception and other activities, including a “selfie booth.” In May I will fly to Toulouse to tour the A380 final assembly line. I am excited to witness the construction of this lovely plane. I will hit the links while there and report back about the thrashing I plan for my friends in Europe.

I recently flew to Los Angeles to attend a special event for Saudi Arabian Airlines, whose director general was in town for the official opening of the carrier’s new offices and to accept delivery of Saudia’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It was a pleasure to meet with Saudi Arabian Airlines’ executives, including His Excellency Sulaiman Al-Hamdan, chairman of the board and president of Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation; engineer Saleh Al-Jasser, director general; Rashed Al-Ajmi, vice president of sales; Abdulrahman Al-Fahad, vice president, public relations; and Musaed Almusaed, country manager USA. It is an exciting time for the carrier, as this livery will improve the service and onboard experience. I presented Saudia with GT’s Publisher’s Recognition Award for its years of dedication to U.S. travelers and for service excellence and reliability. I visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia years ago and enjoyed its hospitality, archaeological sites and historic attractions.

At GT, we’re busy planning the annual Wines on the Wing competition, the Leisure Travel Awards to be presented at the Sofitel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills in May and the Trazees (awards from our sister publication trazeetravel.com). We will also hold our regular Globility Board meeting in April. Any subscriber interested in completing an application for the board may reach out to Angelique Platas at angelique.platas@globaltravelerusa.com.

We all have a lot on our plates at Global Traveler in our never-ending quest for the best in business and luxury travel … and you deserve the best!