The award for 'sexiest new route' of the year goes to ...

04.04.2024 - 12:59 / thepointsguy.com / Brett Snyder / Henry Harteveldt

"And the sexiest new nonstop route of the year is ... "

No, that wasn't an obscure part of the Oscars you missed last month.

Instead, that phrase was uttered ahead of an honor given out at the 2024 Cranky Network Awards — something you might liken to the Oscars of airline route planning.

The awards have been handed out annually since 2021 by Brett Snyder, author of the Cranky Flier aviation blog and analysis site after which the awards are named.

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This year's event in Oakland drew not only airline executives and industry insiders but also media from outlets like The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

That there's so much interest in specific airline routes may surprise some, but stories about new flights are routinely some of our most popular stories here at TPG. That was also true during my two decades as the Today in the Sky columnist at USA Today; word of a new airline destination would often vie with trending national news to make the site's list of most-read stories on any given day.

Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and president of Atmosphere Research, was among those attending the event in person. He's not surprised that the event has found legs.

"An airline's route network is fundamentally the product we buy when choosing an airline and booking a flight," he said. "The analysis and decision-making involved in planning and choosing the routes an airline flies — and doesn't fly — heavily determines whether the airline will make money."

"I'm not surprised that there is an award show for airline routes. I'm just surprised none of the airline route conferences thought to do something like this first," Harteveldt said, referencing the numerous conferences that take place worldwide on the subject — yes, there are dozens of such airline route conferences each year.

Snyder, who collaborates with Visual Approach founder Courtney Miller to put on the awards, said his initial goal was simply to shine a spotlight on what he thought was an underappreciated part of the industry.

"When we started the Cranky Network Awards during the pandemic, we just saw a group that was overworked, doing remarkable things to help keep their companies afloat," Snyder said, reflecting on the scramble by airlines to adjust their schedules during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis. "We thought they deserved recognition for that, and not necessarily external recognition but more internally."

As for staging an award ceremony, Snyder said in his typical deadpan style that "at the very least, (attendees would) be able to escape for a night away, have a good time and get a trophy to take back and be proud of. That is still our goal with the