George Best Belfast City airport has been highly commended for excellence in airport marketing.
The recognition came at the Routes Europe conference in Bilbao.
Belfast City beat competition from Cork airport, Groningen airport Eelde and Liege airport, with Billund airport the overall winner in the category for airports serving under four million passengers.
Additional capacity has been secured in the past 12 months on Cardiff and London City routes as well as a new route to Doncaster Sheffield, the arrival of Loganair to serve Carlisle Lake District airport from June and JetsGo Holidays as a new charter partner.
Airport commercial director, Katy Best, said: “Throughout the nomination process, airlines from across Europe recommend airports which they believe have provided exceptional marketing support during the launch of new routes or support for existing services, and which have excelled in marketing and negotiating potential new routes.
“To have our work recognised as best practice within the industry and receive a nomination is fantastic but to be named highly commended by a panel of senior international airline executives is an incredible accolade for Belfast City airport.”
She added: “Our approach is very much to be a ‘partner in market’ for our airlines allowing them to benefit from our expertise and knowledge, not only our own passenger base, but also of the local market, to best support their routes.
“We spend a lot of time ensuring our route development and airline marketing strategies are aligned with the brand and values of the airline itself and are tailored specifically to include activity that will have a direct impact on awareness and growth of the routes from Belfast City.”