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Award for caring airline chief
The boss of a European airline has won a top award – for helping children caught up in the school hostage drama at Beslan in Russia.
Jaroslav Tvrdik, president of CSA Czech Airlines, laid on a special flight for more than 70 of the young survivors of the attack, arranging for them to pay a holiday visit to Prague.
To help youngsters get over the ordeal they suffered in last year’s terrorist attack, in which more than 300 people died, the Russian Red Cross initially flew a group of children to the spa area of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic, BBC News reports.
A second trip was planned but money was short, so Mr Tvrdik paid for a Russian plane to ferry children from Belsan to Baku on the Black Sea coast and then set aside a CSA aircraft to transfer them to Prague.
For his efforts, he has won the Outstanding Service Award in the OAG Airline of the Year Awards in London, run by airline guide and travel information company OAG.
The Czech Republic’s health minister Millada Emmerova told the Press Assocation: “Mr Tvrdik read in the local media that the project was threatened by a shortage of money on the Russian side and he immediately called me and offered help. He did not need any prompting or request for assistance.”
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