Prague Airport named overall winner of Route Europe 2026 Awards

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The outcomes have been introduced and the winners of this yr’s Route Europe Prize have been introduced.

The discussion board focuses on the continent’s airports, tourism authorities and airways, recognizing finest practices in route improvement and achievements in airport and vacation spot advertising.

The 2026 version of Route Europe was held within the Italian metropolis of Rimini and a complete of six awards had been awarded.

Three awards got to airports for excellence in route improvement advertising, whereas different awards got to locations that finest supported their accomplice airways and to airways that had been most profitable in growing profitable and worthwhile routes.

airport award

Airport advantages had been divided into classes based mostly on the variety of passengers, together with lower than 5 million, 5 million to twenty million, and greater than 20 million.

Florence Airport received within the class with fewer than 5 million passengers, whereas Athens Worldwide Airport received within the class with greater than 20 million passengers.

Prague Airport was named the general winner for the primary time by the jury after being named one of the best airport within the 5 million to twenty million passenger class.

In 2025, the Czech Republic’s busiest aviation hub dealt with 17.8 million passengers, a rise of 8.5% in comparison with 2024 and even greater than the pre-coronavirus pandemic determine.

Jiří Viscocci, Govt Director of Aviation Enterprise Improvement at Prague Airport, stated: “Within the face of intense competitors from European airports, each awards signify vital achievements that we worth very extremely.”

Viscocci added that the airport’s long-term technique, based mostly on open cooperation with companions, contains “not solely growing new locations, but in addition growing the variety of seats and frequency of flights on present routes, thereby strengthening the airport’s accessibility and competitiveness in the long run.”

This honor is the most recent success for Prague Airport, which additionally received the Routeworld 2025 within the 10-20 million passenger class.

Prague bets on route growth

In 2025, Prague Airport supported 46 new routes and 24 new locations. The hub additionally welcomed 12 new airways with established operations. This brings the overall variety of airways at present working there to 89.

New routes embrace connections to Seoul with Asiana Airways, Abu Dhabi with Etihad Airways, Toronto with Air Canada and Sharjah with Air Arabia.

This yr additionally sees the launch of recent long-haul routes, resembling American Airways’ path to Philadelphia and Starlux Airways’ path to Taipei, which shall be a Taiwanese service’s first European route.

Jet2 3 consecutive wins

The Route Europe 2026 Finest Airline award went to Jet2, marking the third consecutive time a British low-cost airline has received this award.

In complete, Jet2 operates over 650 routes to over 80 locations from 14 bases throughout the UK. Its latest hub, London Gatwick, opened in March 2026 with flights to Tenerife.

Throughout its first summer season working from Gatwick, Jet2 flew to 29 locations in Spain, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Malta, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

The UK’s third-largest airline can also be including 37 new routes throughout its community this summer season, together with three new locations: La Palma in Spain, Palermo in Italy and Samos in Greece.

On the final day of the Route Europe 2026 occasion, the Emilia-Romagna area, town of Rimini and Rimini-San Marino Worldwide Airport formally handed over the duty of internet hosting 2027 to Fraport TAV Antalya Airport in Turkiye.