NittanyLion

Rather BIG news is upcoming in terms of a new flight to CVG (I sourced this news from the airliners.net website, which is great). I follow CVG closely and wasn't expecting this one at all: Starting in early June 2017 (Thursday the 8th to be exact), United is adding a daily non-stop to SFO. 10:50 AM departure out of SFO, 6:10 arrival at CVG, 7 PM departure back out of CVG, with a 9:20 arrival at SFO. Currently, Frontier and Delta are both flying CVG-SFO, but both are doing it at less than daily levels. As of today, United has no mainline service into CVG. But that changes in October 2016: mainline flights to both ORD and DEN. Then, this SFO flight will make three. Of note, United is also starting a non-stop DTW-SFO in June 2017. DTW is a Delta hub, of course, and DTW-SFO is a route where Delta has a monopoly on the non-stops. We'll see how Atlanta reacts to United being more aggressive in the CVG and DTW markets.

Yep. The "intermodel Consolidated Rental Car Facility" is scheduled for construction in 2018-2019. https://www.cvgairport.com/docs/default-source/master-plan-report/2-exec-summary.pdf?sfvrsn=2 It IS overdue. The current rental car set-up stinks at CVG. Although it is still infinitely better than Denver or God forbid, Atlanta. Atlanta: land in concourse D, walk through a packed concourse with no moving walkways, escalator downstairs, endure the packed and hot Plane Train past 6 stops, escalator back upstairs, walk through the large concourse, go outside, dodge traffic crossing a couple streets, board the tram, endure the 10 MPH trip that stops 5 times and crosses 2 freeways, before FINALLY arriving at the facility, where there are 40-minute long lines.

So, we're a couple months into both AA and DL being on the CVG-LGA route. I've flown the route twice in CY 2016, both times being on the Delta 6:15 AM flight (unfortunately, my employer's corporate contract requires me to fly Delta versus American). Observations: 1. Both the 6:15 AM flights were on MD-88s. This had been a 7 AM flight on a CRJ9, but when American announced their flight would leave at 6:15 and on an ERJ-175, Delta did their usual tricks of (a) up-gauging, (b) switching times, and © reducing flight costs (vs. the previously absurd $1100 mid-week round-trip levels). However, on each of those 6:15 AM Delta flights, there were about 40 people on board. ~30% load factor. Those are only a couple anecdotes, and I have no idea what the load factors are on the AA flights, but flying airplanes that are 30% full doesn't seem good for DL in terms of driving AA out. 2. If you go further out into April and beyond on the schedules, that first flight out that was an MD-88 is showing up as a CRJ9. Maybe that's just a placeholder: we'll see if DL switches back to mainline as we get closer. But could be an early sign that they're realizing they won't drive AA out.

Concourse C is finally coming down this summer. It's been collecting mothballs for 7.5 years now. The space will be used for airplane parking and another de-icing pad. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2016/03/04/cvg-saying-goodbye-concourse-c/81300906/

As for the California flights: the flights out leave CVG in mid-afternoon. The returns are red-eyes. Not a terrible schedule by any means. Delta has REALLY been scrimping on the CVG-SFO flights of late, they are down to less than daily. Competition on CVG-LAX is a good-thing. Delta runs that twice a day but it is expensive. Both CMH and IND get daily non-stops to LAX from BOTH American and Delta. Much much cheaper. I'm still hopeful that AA adds CVG-PHX some day soon. But that's probably a few years off (e.g., when Delta's lease on the B Concourse runs its course).

I used to take that direct Pittsburgh flight for work on an almost-weekly basis. One time I even sat one row behind Mark Mallory on that flight. FWIW, DL still has non-stops from CVG to each of GRR, PIT and RIC from December 1st onwards. The non-stops to each of those cities for the October-November period were cancelled VERY LATE in the game --- Delta didn't officially do that until early September. The dynamic here is that things are very-much-on-the-edge in terms of DL's regional jet partners having enough pilots in the short-term. Things will likely be better in the longer-term, but things are close right now and the more marginal of the regional flights are getting cancelled. I do think each of those flights has some value to Delta, and Delta would like to keep them in an ideal world: (1) CVG-PIT is at the edge of "drive-ability" and DL can command a decent price premium for business travelers who value their time. Plus, it can be used for some connecting flows, stuff like PIT-CVG-DEN or PIT-CVG-DFW. DL can flow those travelers over DTW or ATL also, but having a CVG connection option does increase overall operational flexibility. (2) CVG-GRR has to get a decent amount of P&G/Meijer business travelers. Note, for instance, the rather-random-but-really-not-when-you-think-about-WalMart CVG-XNA flight that still exists. Anyway, CVG-GRR I think can still make some modest $. (3) CVG-RIC is probably most valuable to DL on the Richmond, VA end. Richmond is about the 65th busiest airport in America (it ranks right between Louisville and Norfolk) with DL currently the airline with the greatest market share. The region has pretty good demographics in terms of per-capita income, considerably higher than America as a whole. Given that, I think Delta ideally would want to keep their market share edge there and even 2 flights a day that allow flows like RIC-CVG-LAX help in that regard. Anyway, long story short: if I'm betting, I bet these flights may have a few more cancelled months, but are back as non-stops by the start of spring 2016, at the latest. We'll see.

Per an airlines aviation message board I read, American Eagle will be starting 3x daily to LaGuardia, beginning in January 2016. American Eagle has a fairly small presence at LGA, so this is clearly targeted at the originating and departing traffic. No real connecting opportunities on either end. I'm excited about this: Delta charges ABSURD prices on CVG-LGA (north of $1100 for a mid-week round trip, even if you book 3 months out!!!), and this should put some pressure on Delta at CVG.

Allegiant Air adding both CVG-AUS (Austin, TX) and CVG-SAV (Savannah, GA) as twice-a-week seasonal routes. Austin begins in June, Savannah begins in May. Both end in August. Savannah/Hilton Head and the Low Country are popular destination spots for Cincinnati folk, so I'm sure that will do well (I tend to expect it gets extended). Austin, more of a question mark to me. I know plenty of people who business-travel from CVG to either AUS or SAT (San Antonio), and those folk don't like how they always have to connect. But Allegiant flights aren't geared toward the business flier. Allegiant has done their market research, no doubt, but intuitively I'm not sure there's enough leisure-traffic for these flights to work. Also: the summer, Austin is freaking HOT at that time of year. Is the summer a "high time" for leisure travel to Austin?

"Concourse I"?!?!?!?!?!?!? Are they being serious??? The new Concourse F is nice and all, but it seems they're already running out of room on the east side of the airport. A Concourse G seems challenging enough, much less H or I. There's not really a lot of room for that sixth runway either. Tight fit between the 2nd and 3rd runways to the South. And taxi-times from those southern runways are ALREADY pretty bad as is. Seriously, I know DELTA stands for "Directing Every traveLer Through Atlanta" --- but enough. They don't have to connect ALL their traffic there. I'm pretty sure there is at least one airport out there west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi that has 4 runways (3 parallel runways), thus allowing Delta to connect some traffic through there as well.

I just noticed this ...... Delta is doing something pretty bizarre (and not good, IMO) with their SFO-CVG direct route. Up until last Thursday (4-June), there was a once-daily leaving San Francisco at Noon, getting in at about 7:30. Pretty good timing. Starting Friday (5-June), that once-daily shifts to leaving San Francisco at 9:15 PM, getting in at 4:45 AM (?!?!?!). Red-eyes have their role, and I personally like the LAX-CVG red-eye and have used it several times. It doesn't leave LAX until 11:30 PM and gets into CVG at 6:30 AM. Cincinnati locals can spend an entire day in places like Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Vegas & Phoenix before flying XXX-LAX-CVG back home. There's also the opportunity for people to connect in CVG for the first bank of morning flights. But a red-eye that gets in before 5, leaving a city with virtually no feeder flights? Horrible! The SFO-CVG returns to a 7:30 PM arrival in late August, but this is a pretty strange thing Delta is doing for the summer. (conspiracy theorists would say it provides an excuse to pull the flight entirely, because nobody was flying it)

One interesting cut from Delta Airlines that I saw on another board ------- CVG-SLC is currently twice daily but will be cut to only ONCE for the months of April & May. Then kick back up to twice daily beginning 1-June-2014. For April & May, only the 8:40 AM departure from CVG will remain, the 5:20 PM departure will disappear. Going the other way, the mid-morning SLC departure/mid-afternoon CVG arrival will disappear, while the late-afternoon SLC departure/late-evening CVG arrival will remain. Those flights are pretty darn valuable for making connections to and from the West. Hopefully this is not a sign of larger things to come, because that's a very odd route for Delta to cut for a few months.

This is definitely good news. More details: (1) The second flight to Denver leaves in the mid-afternoon, so it is well-timed. The current flight, of course, leaves VERY VERY early, typically at 6:15 AM (it's occasionally the very first commercial flight of the day to leave). But obviously the locals have supported it well despite the fairly inconvenient takeoff time. (2) The second flight to Cincinnati leaves around 10 AM MT and arrives in the mid-afternoon. Another fairly well-timed flight. The current flight is one that gets into CVG right around Midnight --- convenient for maximizing time out West, but rough if someone has to be productive the next day. (3) One thing I find odd --- the 2nd flights will occur on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Not running a 2nd daily on Tuesdays and Saturdays make sense. Not running the 2nd daily flight on Friday is the odd one --- summer Fridays are typically very very busy travel days.

Come on --- let's do the math here. CVG has ~4,000,000 enplanements a year. Divide by 365, roughly 11,000 enplanements a day. Enplanements are only people boarding a plane. So let's multiply by 2, that's 22,000 people either walking onto or off of an airplane at CVG each day. If 75% of those people are O&D (non-connecting), that works to 16,500 O&D passengers per day. Those 16,500 passengers don't travel to CVG via 16,500 different vehicles. Let's assume it only takes 11,000 vehicles (as some people are traveling together) to get them to CVG. Of those 11,000 vehicles, not all of them originate from/travel to Ohio. Let's say only 75% do (probably a high estimate). Now we're at 8,250 vehicles going to and from CVG. Of those 8,250 vehicles, not all will use the Brent Spence to cross the Ohio River. For many west-siders (Ross, Harrison, Miamitown, etc), it's best to come around 275. The ferry is also a west-side option. There are multiple other downtown bridges, most notably I-471. Folks from Anderson Township, Milford, Clermont County and the like will use 275 from the east. Let's say only 50% (again, probably a high estimate) transit across the Brent Spence. Now we are at 4,125 vehicles that use the Brent Spence daily to utilize CVG. The Brent Spence has 140,000 vehicles use it daily. AT MOST, CVG is responsible for 3% of the Brent Spence's total traffic.

UA ran a 2nd DEN-CVG on a CR7 from May to September last year (with a ~ 12 AM arrival into CVG). Not surprised to see UA do this again --- I'm not 100% sure I'd really classify this as a "response" to F9. We'll see if they run it past the end of October (I tend to doubt it). All in all, considering I make the DEN-CVG commute twice monthly for work ... nice that we've gone from 2 daily flights to 4 in just a couple weeks!

There are services out there (generally cost ~$10/month) which will give visibility into how many seats are still available on flights at a given fare. Delta's selling these $199 round-trips to DEN as a T fare. Delta's response has been predictable --- the published L/U/T fares to cities like LAX, SFO, PHX, and SAN have all been lowered by 10-25%. It's up to us Cincinnati-based folk not to fall into Delta's trap here.