The most exciting time of the year has finally arrived. It’s awards season! Today, I’m pleased to reveal the nominations for the upcoming 2026 Cranky Network Awards presented by Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The ceremony which honors the best in airline network planning will be on February 19 in the Valley of the Sun for invited guests. If you aren’t on the list, you can still follow along on social media where we’ll post the winners live. Look for more details on that as the event draws closer.
Let’s get into this year’s nominees, listed in alphabetical order for each category.
Sexiest New Route – Short-Haul presented by Embraer
For the sexiest new route under 3,000 miles
- American from Phoenix to Santa Maria (CA)
- Avianca from Quito to San Cristóbal
- Contour from Denver to Taos
- Southwest from Las Vegas to Anchorage
- WestJet from Halifax to Lisbon
Sexiest New Route – Long-Haul presented by Airbus
For the sexiest new route over 3,000 miles
- Air Canada from Montréal to Palma de Mallorca
- Air Transat from Montréal to Agadir (Morocco)
- JetBlue from Boston to Milan/Malpensa
- Delta from New York/JFK to Olbia
- United from Newark to Split
Most Clever Flight Number presented by John Glenn Columbus International Airport
- Alaska 49/50 connecting Anchorage and Honolulu in the 49th and 50th states
- Alaska 180 from Seattle to Rome for the standard 180ml cappuccino cup
- Flair 2821 from Vancouver to Mexico City for the tram between Terminals 2 and 1 in MEX going 28 mph
- United 207 from San Francisco to Adelaide for the world’s longest one way road at 20.7km
- WestJet 555 from Sudbury to Calgary for the world’s largest nickel
Best Airport Partner
As nominated by the airlines themselves
- Chris Hedlin from Calgary
- Kristen Behm from Chattanooga
- Nate Lavin from Salt Lake City
Best New Destination
For a new destination not previously served from the US and Canada (in recent times)
- American to Budapest (Hungary)
- Delta to Malta
- United to Adelaide (Australia)
- United to Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
- WestJet to Cardiff (Wales)
Best Schedule Design
- Alaska for its re-banking in Portland
- American for moving DFW from nine to 13 banks
- Avelo for making New Haven function with an increase in capacity
- Southwest for banking for connections in Chicago, Denver, Nashville, and St Louis
- United for its Hong Kong scissor hub to serve Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City
Most Promising New Partnership presented by Pittsburgh International Airport
For the most promising new partnership in the US or Canada
- Allegiant and Viva for their proposed joint venture which will keep being nominated until the government actually does something about it
- American and Porter for their new codeshare agreement
- Delta (+ JV partners) and Indigo for their memorandum of understanding
- JetBlue and Brightline for selling connecting Brightline tickets via the JetBlue website
- JetBlue and United for their Blue Sky loyalty and interline partnership
La Asociación Nueva Más Prometedora
For the most promising new partnership in Latin America (north of the equator)
- Avianca and Aerolineas Argentinas for their codeshare agreement
- Copa and WestJet for their interline agreement
- Viva and Aerus for their codeshare agreement
- Viva and Allegiant for their proposed joint venture which will keep being nominated until the government actually does something about it
- Viva and Volaris for their merger under a single holding company
Calculated Risk Award
- Alaska for its repositioning of resources from LAX/SFO to Portland and San Diego
- American for its attempt to re-grow and compete at O’Hare
- Avelo for exiting its original West Coast network
- Frontier for its aggressive move on Atlanta
- Spirit for dramatically shrinking its network to try to reach profitability
Best Aircraft-Enabled Opportunity
For the best opportunity that couldn’t be served either economically or operationally without newer generation aircraft
- Air Canada for Montréal to Palma de Mallorca on the A321XLR
- American for Charlotte to Aspen on the CRJ-700
- Porter for Ottawa to Liberia on the Embraer 195-E2
- United for Newark to Santiago de Compostela on the 737-8 MAX
- WestJet for Toronto to Cardiff on the B737-8 MAX
La Red Más Mejorada
The most improved network for Latin American airlines (north of the equator)
- Aeromexico
- Arajet
- Avianca
- Viva
- Volaris
Most Improved Network presented by Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
The most improved network for US and Canadian airlines
- Alaska
- Breeze
- JetBlue
- Spirit
- United
In addition, we have our usual “lifetime-achievement” style winners which will be announced for:
- Irving Tague Secondary Airport Award presented by Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport for the greatest growth in secondary airports
- La Victoria de la Red awarding the excellent performance of a specific part of the network in Latin America
- Network Victory Award for the excellent performance of a specific part of the network in the US or Canada
- Route Victory Award for the excellent performance of a single route in the US or Canada
Lastly, we are proud to announce that we are awarding our very first Lifetime Elite Status award to John Kirby who recently retired from as VP of Network Planning at Spirit after a long carrier ranging from Northwest, USAir, and AirTran to Southwest and Alaska.
And that is the full list! Go ahead and puts your snubs and surprises down in the comments.
27 responses to “Announcing the 2026 Cranky Network Award Nominations”
“Southwest from Las Vegas to Anchorage”
can this really be a sexy new route when Alaska does and has flown the route for years now? US before them… (did you revenue manage this one for HP, cranky? ;) )
It’s the frisson of danger that now comes with flying Southwest. Have you not read the updated conditions of carriage?
Elliot Management has the right to take passenger families private, selling children for spare parts and spouses into, uh, entertainment services.
You have a problem with capitalism? What are you, some kind of socialist?
Your family could be working so much harder to reinforce the status of a wealthy man.
uhhh… right….
MaxPower – Just because another airline has flown it doesn’t mean it can’t be sexy. Alaska had done a couple of times per week and not really committed to the market. Southwest is going big, and it has huge connectivity beyond Vegas too, creating a sexy and connected route.
Nate Lavin from Salt Lake City is so deserving of the Best Airport Partner award. Not only is he just an all around good guy and has built strong partnerships, he has handled the whining about the walk between Concourses A and B from folks here behind the Zion Curtain with aplomb.
@michael I nearly spit out my coffee at “behind the Zion Curtain” LOL….well done!
Absolutely brilliant!
I have really enjoyed seeing the growth in Trans-Atlantic from my home airport of Halifax. I was surprised there was room at the inn for a flight into Lisbon knowing how constrained it is, but the daytime flight gives it a slot that works. The Trans-Atlantic 737 may be tough sell than a widebody, but really isn’t too bad (I mean the 321 is nicer, but c’est la vie!)
Selfishly I’d love to see more nonstops to the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland from the US, especially Eastern New England.
I’ve heard nothing but good things from Canadian friends and would love to visit, but trips frequently require backtracking for a stop in YUL or YYZ, so travel times and fares often aren’t that much less than what a trip across the Atlantic to Ireland or the UK would run, which makes visiting the Maritimes a tougher sell than it should be.
Ill leave two thoughts which is 1) Having lived in Ecuador, cannot overstate how sexy any successful intercountry or even intercontinental flight is. Before to get to the Galapagos from Quito you’d have to go to another country or boat from Guayaquil (which would require a 16 hour bus ride because there were no flights. I def would have taken that flight had I had the chance.
Also the American/Porter code share opens up the world of Bishop Airport in Toronto to the Masses in the US, which is a godsend for anyone actually going to that city.
It’s like magic… PRESTO! If you know you know.
The AA/Porter codeshare may make it more visible and improve FF mile earning, but people have been able to easily connect to YTZ on Porter through JetBlue for years now. It’s a nice incremental improvement, but not really “opening the world”.
It does give AA the Canadian partner they need, and opens up a lot of opportunities for Porter that their interline relationshiops with B6 and DL weren’t offering, so in the overall-partnership award sense it’s a great move. I’m not sure if it or Blue Sky should be the winner in this category.
I like Westjet’s YYZ-Cardiff route idea a lot – I’ve been arguing since Continental dropped EWR-BRS that someone needs to step in and offer service between North America and either Bristol or Cardiff so people can get to the West of England and Wales without having to deal with Heathrow.
(Yes, I really have a love/hate relationshiop with LHR. The ancient quote about Bengal, describing it as “a hell crammed with blessing”, sums it up nicely. I’ve never used LGW, but from what I’ve read I suspect I’d feel about the same about it.)
The flight numbers are something else. Would never have figured any of those out.
Maybe a HM to Breeze for sliding right into the West Coast opportunity when Avelo exited (next day announcement iirc) and also Breeze in the schedule category with what they are doing in RDU. Their thru flight offerings mean a TON of nonstop options out of RDU, while also carrying their bread and butter traffic efficiently from the NE secondary airports to Florida and back.
So much good stuff here that I hate to comment about the one thing I don’t like but, well, here goes.
Why is the short haul / long haul cutoff 3,000 miles? Being a coastal American person, I consider transcons to be long haul. So do the airlines when you look at their long haul type service offerings. LAX-JFK is 2,150 nautical miles and 2,475 statute miles. Perhaps 2,500 is a better delineator?
Typo that I didn’t correct in time – I meant 2,000
Bill – Transcon is definitely not long-haul. The idea was to try and separate different product types. Short-haul now largely includes narrowbodies with domestic-style products. Long-haul is more about flat beds and all that. It’s not perfect, but we had to draw the line somewhere.
writing from Mexico City – is that really the best thing flair could come up with to commemorate? Extra bizarre given that neither Canada nor Mexico measure things in miles per hour…
I never thought I’d see the day when Santa Maria is considered sexy. I know I can’t vote on this, but this is my vote. But, now you can fly American to get the best tri-tip on Earth!
First I love tri-tip, favorite form of BBQ. But having know a few Texans, the idea that you’d fly from Dallas to Santa Maria for BBQ is fight’n words ;)
Maybe their layover in Phoenix would calm them down
The Alaska 49/50 is a good one.
I’m honestly surprised that Etihad’s AUH-CLT route didn’t make the cut for “Sexiest New Route – Long-Haul”. It’s groundbreaking for being our first ever nonstop to/from Charlotte & the Middle East region.
I always wondered why the Middle East carriers seem to be excluded from the Cranky Network Awards. There are a lot of employees there from the western hemisphere, so I’m sure they would love to come back for the ceremony if they were nominated. Give them a break from sand pit for a change!
Steve-o – They aren’t excluded. That route just wans’t deemed sexy enough. We do look at all airlines that touch the Americas north of the equator.
Pumped for B6 to MXP! If La Compagnie can so it, so can they!
DFW will have 13 banks? Are they really banks at that point, or is it pretty much a rolling schedule?