While the “sexy” of a given destination will vary depending on each individual's personal preferences, founder of the aviation blog “Cranky Flyer,” Brett Snyder, has been giving that title to routes that satisfy a specific travel need and make make a great destination a little easier to navigate. reach.
Founded in 2021, the Cranky Network Awards are held once a year to name the best in air route planning and have been gaining increasing recognition among industry experts who are waiting to see which routes will win different awards.
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Held in February, this year's ceremony is called JetBlue Airways (BLUE) ' new flight from Los Angeles to Nassau as the “most attractive” short-haul route and Air Transat's Montreal to Marrakech route as the best long-haul route.
This 'sexy' route fills a sunny void that has been missing since 2018
The nominees, who were attracted attention for the first time by travel website The Points Guy, including Alaska Airlines (ALK) Anchorage to San Diego and Delta (give it) Flights from Atlanta to Curacao for short distances, as well as Delta flights from Atlanta to Nice, France and Lufthansa. (DLAKF) Flights from Munich to Seattle for long distances.
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As Snyder explained during the awards transmitted The objective of this ceremony is to present interesting new routes with humor. He wants nominees to “worry less about winning the award” and focus on “having a good time with their colleagues.”
The Nassau route was chosen because the Bahamian capital is primarily a cruise destination that is often underserved by airlines.
“Other than Nassau, the Grand Canyon is the only Caribbean city with direct service from California,” he said when announcing the winner. “Havana and Montego Bay were last flown from LAX in 2018 and nothing else has been flown in over a decade.”
Awards include Calculated Risk, Most Promising Partnership and Best New Destination
american airlines (AAL) won the “Calculated Risk” category for its choice to focus on building hubs in the southern US, while the “Most Promising Partnership” award went to Alaska for its merger with Hawaiian Airlines (JA) . Tulum was the obvious choice for “Best New Destination” as Mexican authorities have just completed construction of the new Tulum Felipe Carrillo Puerto Airport to serve the growing tourist popularity of what was once a sleepy Mayan town.
“We were the first to announce service to Tulum, so I'll be the first to claim this award,” joked Jeremy Vincent, Delta's Global Network Planning Manager, when accepting the award. Along with Delta, airlines such as American, United Airlines (UAL) JetBlue and Spirit Airlines (SAVE) all announced that they would launch new routes to the city this year (the latter's plans were thwarted by the retirement of the engines used in the plane planned for the flight).
Other nominees for the top new destination category include American's new route to Tijuana in Mexico, United's new flight to Christchurch in New Zealand and Air Greenland's new flight to Nuuk; Remote destinations like that can be a blessing both for people who live in those communities and for those who have always dreamed of seeing Greenland but have been discouraged by how difficult it is to get there.
