By James Hetzel, Director of Product Marketing at Cirium and Will Livsey, Diio Product Manager at Cirium
Have you ever wondered what it takes to receive the coveted Cranky Network Award? If you’re a professional network or commercial planner, then this recognition is likely something you’ve heard of before. The awards are given out each year to recognize the best of the best in network and commercial air travel planning. From improving passenger loads to maximizing the use of aircraft, read on to learn more about the Cranky Network Awards!
Held February 23, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ the Cranky Network Awards recognized and rewarded the challenging work of airlines and airports in their air service development and commercial and network planning activities in an upbeat in and fun manner; after all nothing is dull in air travel.
This year some of the award categories were:
- Most Promising New Partnership
- Best Airport Partner
- Most Improved Network
- Route Victory Award honoring a single route’s success.
- Network Victory Award honoring large successful network achievement
Cirium had the honor of sponsoring and presenting The Cranky Technical Awards. By leveraging data analytics by Cirium, we set out to recognize outstanding technical achievements that will hopefully lead to big outcomes for our winners.
Frequency Growth Champion Award: JetBlue
For 2022, leveraging Cirium Schedule data, we found that JetBlue increased existing market frequency more than any other carrier with a whopping 34.6% increase.
Jet Blue Frequency Growth (existing markets)
| 2021 | 2022 | |
| Flights | 99,277 | 133,638 |
| Markets | 216 | 216 |
| Frequency per market | 1.26 | 1.63 |
| Difference | 0.43 | |
| % Difference | 34.6% |
New Route Load Factor Champion Award: Allegiant
Looking at US flights for 2022 and T-100, we found the route launched in 2022 with the highest load factor for the first 10 months of 2022 was Allegiant’s entry from Akron (CAK) – Sarasota (SRQ) with an excellent 93.1% load factor.
Gate Utilization Champion Award: American Airlines
Dipping deeper into flown data by Cirium, American Airlines squeezed every bit utilization at Gate 23 at Austin (AUS) Airport with 10.9 average turns per day.
Aircraft Airtime Champion Award (Mainline): Delta Air Lines: Airbus A350 / Tail: N515DN
Delta Air Lines takes the top spot logging a whopping 5,387.8 hours (about 7 and a half months) of airtime for their Airbus A350 – Tail Number N515DN.
Aircraft Airtime Champion Award (Regional): Envoy Air: Embraer E175 / Tail N260NN
Among regional operators, Envoy Air’s Embraer E175 / Tail N260NN logged an impressive 2,899.1 hours (about 4 months).
Aircraft Cycles Champion Award (Regional): Southern Airways Express / Tail: N5150 at 3,148 cycles
Southern Express Airways was the winner of the Aircraft Cycles Champion Award for aircraft tail N5150, a Cessna 208 Caravan, operating a tremendous 3,148 cycles in 2022 – an average 8.62 cycles per day.
Aircraft Cycle Champion Award (Domestic US Only): Southwest Airlines / Tail N940WN at 2,138 cycles
Southwest Airlines operated tail N940WN, a Boeing 737 NG, across its domestic US network 2,138 cycles.
New Traffic Champion Award – United Airlines: Newark (EWR-SFO) with an increase of +370,878 passengers
We found that the biggest market increase for the 12-month period ending October 2022 versus the previous 12-month period ending October 2021 was United’s Newark (EWR) to San Francisco (SFO) with an increase of over 370,878 passengers.
If you’d like to watch the award ceremony, visit the Cranky Flyer website, here. Cirium congratulates the winners of The Cranky Network Awards for their hard work to make travel better, safer, efficient and more profitable!
LEARN MORE ABOUT DIIO BY CIRIUM
