Irish airline CityJet has been named Regional Airline of the Year at a ceremony in Berlin.

The airline took the prize at the CAPA Aviation Awards.

It is presented to a regional airline that has been the best performer strategically, established itself as a leader and demonstrated innovation in the sector.

The airline has gone through a strategic transformation that saw it provide services under ACMI/wet lease arrangements - where carriers provide aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance for other carriers.

CityJet announced back in July that it was to merge with Spanish carrier Air Nostrum.

This will create Europe's largest regional airline.

Since 2015, CityJet has been transforming its business from being primarily a scheduled service provider into an exclusively wet lease airline.

Its fleet of 44 aircraft fly on behalf of major customers including Aer Lingus, Air France, Brussels Airlines and SAS.

Peter Harbison is executive chairman of CAPA: "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".

Collecting the award, CityJet chief Eeecutive 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 global awards were Qantas (airline of the year), WOW (low cost airline), Orlando (large airport over 30m passengers) and Air Malta (turnaround airline).