CityJet was named regional airline of the year at an aviation awards ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday night.
The Irish airline picked up the award at the CAPA Aviation Awards at the world aviation outlook summit and was singled out as the “best performer strategically”.
The company was selected to its strategy change which sees it move away from operating branded flights to becoming a wet lease operator.
A wet lease arrangement is one where an airline provides an aircraft, its crew and maintenance requirements to another airline.
"CityJet has pioneered a new vision of regional airline operations in Europe, focusing on third party wet leasing to offset revenue risk and driving consolidation in pursuit of greater efficiency," said CAPA executive chairman Peter Harbison.
Headquartered in Dublin, CityJet operates a fleet of 44 regional jets and earlier this year agreed a deal with a Spanish regional carrier to bolster its leasing business and attract new contracts in the regional air-travel market in a move it said was a “prelude to a merger”.
Collecting the award, CityJet chief executive Pat Byrne said: "We set out on a journey to transform CityJet a few years ago and today have over 1,300 staff employed across nine countries in Europe, all of whom have contributed to the delivery of our strategy.
“I thank them and all of our customer airlines and look forward to many more years of leading the way in Europe.”
Other winners at the ceremony were Qantas, which won airline of the year and WOW which won the award for low cost airline.
