Future of the Cincinnati Airport (Columbus, Cleveland: 2013, motel, lawyer)

[theguyfrompluto]

Do you think Cincinnati Airport will ever recover from Delta's hub cuts. In 2002, CVG saw 20 million passengers. In 2013, it sees 5-6 million. It used to be Delta's 2nd largest hub. Ever since the merger with Northwest, 75% of Delta flights were cut. The only low cost carrier is Frontier Airlines with service to Denver and Trenton, NJ in the future. Southwest dominates another airport about an hour away. Jetblue is looking to serve Cleveland. What do you think will happen to CVG in the future?

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by theguyfrompluto

Do you think Cincinnati Airport will ever recover from Delta's hub cuts. In 2002, CVG saw 20 million passengers. In 2013, it sees 5-6 million. It used to be Delta's 2nd largest hub. Ever since the merger with Northwest, 75% of Delta flights were cut. The only low cost carrier is Frontier Airlines with service to Denver and Trenton, NJ in the future. Southwest dominates another airport about an hour away. Jetblue is looking to serve Cleveland. What do you think will happen to CVG in the future?

No, I do not see why CVG should recover from the loss of Delta's secondary hub. The Delta merger with Northwest put the hand-writing on the wall. Northwest had invested considerably in Detroit as a hub, one of the reasons they either had to merge or face going bankrupt. One of them had to give as they were too close together. It makes sense to me the nod was given to Detroit, better geograhical location relative to the rest of the US and Atlanta.

You can lament CVG had 20 million passengers in 2002 and only 5-6 million in 2013. But in reality the only thing which has been lost are the direct flights the hub system generated. The 20 million to the 5-6 million means little to the local airline traffic or business since they were all passengers just passing through, not coming to Cincinnati. The only significant impact was on the airport operations itself, and I am sure that is significant.

What needs to be watched over is the Kenton County Airport Board, which watches over CVG. Their balloon has been deflated considerably. Those responsible for nominating members of the board need to insure the board is acting for the benefit of all the citizens of Greater Cincinnati, as that is the only reason for the airport being there. That can be difficult to ascertain when passenger traffic drops as severely as it has at CVG. But in reality passenger fares should be coming down. You no longer can justify high fares when you no longer have direct flights to the majority of the US. I think the CVG board needs a complete overhaul.

[det2011sb]

Good points. I'm from Memphis and essentially the same thing has happened. People were quick to blame Delta, but Delta only did what was good business sense. Memphis, a city of 1.3 million, had an airport that handled 11 million passengers a year at its peak. Compare that with Oklahoma city, which handles 3.6 million passengers a year. Memphis originating passengers payed a premium price for the "service" of having so many direct flights offered to a market that simply wasn't able to provide the passengers.

Regarding criticism of the Memphis airport authority, it was probably a very forward thinking move to court northwest to form a hub in the 1980's. Back then Memphis was similar in size to Charlotte, Orlando, and Austin. However, unfortunately the city did not enjoy the same growth and economic development the other cities did. One could possibly criticize the Memphis airport authority for not seeing the writing on the wall in the late 90's or early 2000's, and that may be fair. Maybe they could have been more aggressive in courting other airlines. Maybe they could have found loopholes in their contracts with delta/northwest, but who knows.

I suspect the memphis airport authority 1) was possibly a little complacent, 2) maybe did not have good business foresight 3) possibly did not have much room to negotiate with delta 4) were too afraid to go after other airlines for fear of losing service rather than pursuing price reductions.

I don't know the details regarding Cincinnati airport, but I suspect it's similar.

[chet_kinkaid]

unfortunately prices will only go up..discount cities fares will rise to match cincy not the other way around..with the mergers airlines are now charging for bags and fares are up dramatically and they are making profits.southwest is no cheaper than american in most cities..i suspect when the economy gets better there will be perhaps more competition.maybe new airlines will emerge etc...

[kjbrill]

^^ The airlines may be making a profit, but it is at the expense of other factors. Passenger traffic is down. With the security fiasco, traveling by air is no longer a pleasant experience, it is more like drudgery. And now they are reducing seat size! With baggage charges and others, how many more ways can they dream up to drive customers away?

I predict the now completed merger between U S Air and American will bring the same kind of changes with them as occurred between Delta and Northwest. The smaller hubs will see a drop in flights and service. It is just sound fiscal policy.

[SWOH]

Probably more bad news from Cincy...
(Pleasently surprised from a Daytonian perspective though)

PSA Airlines to hire 900 with American Airlines jet order - Dayton Business Journal

[wrightflyer]

PSA and its jobs doesn't really effect Cincinnati, except it may draw former Comair pilots north. But I think by the time Delta folder Comair, the pilots were reassigned to other Delta Connection carriers.

PSA operates flights mostly from Charlotte and Reagan. Of course, with the merger, CLT has prognosis for bleeding flights, which could mean a re-positioning of PSA and at which hub it's based. If anything, it could at least put newer planes on the route to Cincinnati and Dayton between Charlotte/current AA hub and Reagan.

Speaking of the USAir/AA merger, I suspect Dayton is sure to keep its non-stop service to Reagan for the sole reason of PSA having a base at DAY, let alone Wright-Patt's presence. Cincinnati may keep the service because it would be head-to-head with the new AA and Delta. Or, at least Delta would keep its route in tact.

Personally, I think the Delta bleed has stopped, hopefully for good, but at least for now. Atlanta, even with its new International Concourse F cannot handle a large increase in traffic. This puts CVG in a prime spot to at least compete on an east-west and SW Ohio to Florida route structure. I do agree prices, if they come down, won't do so in any drastic fashion.

[kjbrill]

Too many people do not realize what a 1st class facility CVG is. over the years of its growth, it has acquired infrastructure which is world class. CVG has one of the best airplane deicer recovery sytems in the world, designed to prevent the deicer fluid from contaminating ground water.

It also has a first class runway system, covering both East/West and North/South weather conditions for landings/takeoffs, with multiple runways for each.

The main challenge for CVG is how to maintain the infrastructure it already has, within obviously the reduced income from the number of departure/landings and the flights. If they can maintain the infrastructure, as additional changes occur within the airline industry they will be positioned to take advantage, as the cost of new facilities will continue to skyrocket.

[kjbrill]

If CVG is damaging business in the Cincinnati Area to the degree some contend, there is one easy counter-attack business can use. Issue a decree that if you want your business expense report validated, You Will drive to Dayton or Columbus for lower air travel fares. And only if you document on your expense report what you saved flying out of the alternate airports will it be validated and compensated. That should wake the people at CVG up. Business travel is the lifeblood of CVG, so if businesses decree we don't want you flying out of CVG unless you can validate the fares compared to alternatives, that should have an impact.

Another option for business is since the air travel is paid for by the business, they can declare any frequent flyer benefits belong to them, not the employee. Of course the employees will raise a stink. But it is totally legal as the employees did not pay for what returned the frequent flyer benefits. The company can cash them in for value against future flights.

Neither of these ideas is especially sound. My former company attempted to require us to fly out of alternate airports at lower rates. A number of us got together and said This Stinks! We are the ones being made to pay for their reduced traveling expenses. So we got a lawyer and threatened to file a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board. We not only want travel cost reimbursement for using our own car to travel to a more distant airport, we want compensation for the additional time involved at our normal equivalent hourly rate (which every company has to calculate). And if the departure time, or arrival time, exceeds normal expected values, we want to be reimbursed for the cost of a motel (and meals) to give us a more typical day. We did not actually have to file the grievance, just threaten to. The company backed down quickly.

[mike1003]

In CVG's heyday, I put in over 3.5 Million Miles between Delta and Northwest. CVG's prices were so high that I had to drive to DAY take a commuter to CVG to get the flight I wanted for almost 3/4th to 1/2 the price of flying out of CVG.

Delta owns most of the gates at CVG and until they give them up to low cost carriers, CVG will look like a ghost town.