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A4A Announces Nominations are Open for the 2026 Nuts & Bolts Awards

October 08, 2025

Airlines for America is proud to announce nominations are now open for the 2026 Nuts & Bolts Awards, which recognize individuals who demonstrate outstanding service and achievements in the engineering or maintenance fields within the commercial aviation industry.

This leading industry award recognizes outstanding engineering and maintenance employees and marks its 60^th year in 2026.

Safety is and will always be the number one priority of U.S. airlines — both passenger and cargo carriers — and as an industry, we are constantly challenging ourselves to exceed the highest standards of safety.

U.S. airlines complete over 27,000 flights a day, and this is possible because of the tireless work from engineering and maintenance professionals dedicated to upholding a tradition of safety.

The Nuts & Bolts Awards have been presented since 1967 and are awarded to two individuals each year — one in the airline category and another in the airline support category.

This award has been given to many deserving luminaries in the field, including Joe Sutter, manager of the design team of the Boeing 747, and Former National Transportation Safety Board Member John Goglia.

For reference, the past ten recipient pairs of the Nuts & Bolts awards include:

Nomination Guidelines

Nominations should include 300-500 words justifying why your candidate’s contributions to the aviation industry in the engineering and maintenance field deserve recognition and the role these individuals played in industry activities with significant outcomes.

Nominations may be made using the form below from now until December 15, 2025. The award recipients will be announced in advance of the 2026 MRO Americas Conference in Orlando where they will be presented the award and honored at a luncheon featuring previous Nuts & Bolts award recipients.