1 hour ago, Robuu said:

 

Not that it matters to the rest of what you said, but Ireland is not considered "continental Europe." I guess you could consider it "more continental" than Iceland, which is my best guess at what you were thinking.

 

Maybe they were referencing more the Schengen Area? Which allows travel to other Schengen areas without passport control and customs.

 

EDIT: Just realized Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area. nevermind.

I really should have put "continental Europe" in quotes haha. But in that vein, Aer Lingus does have a pretty strong onward connecting network. Dublin is also unique in that it has a US border preclearance facility.

In my experience, "continental" is most often used as a means of separating the British Isles (including Ireland) from the rest of Europe. The term excludes other islands as well, but the British Isles are the most populous and economically significant part of Europe which isn't part of continental Europe.

American Airlines Seasonal Flight to PHX Starts

 

https://www.cvgairport.com/about/news/2019/12/18/american-airlines-now-offers-seasonal-service-from-cvg-to-phoenix

 

AA is starting their seasonal nonstop to PHX. This flight runs from 12/18/19 - 4/6/20 and is operated by an A319. 

 

After a quick check of Google Flights, prices to PHX from CVG are pretty cheap through the holiday season due to competition with the Delta nonstop. For reference, that flight is operated with a larger A321.

CVG Passenger Stats for November

 

November:

2018: 707,672

2019: 710,816

Var: +0.4%

 

YTD:

2018: 8,196,651

2019: 8,385,261

Var: +2.3%

 

November came in nearly flat to LY with just a ~2,800 passenger growth vs. 2018. This represents the lowest Month over Month growth since April. Part of this could be due to the late Thanksgiving meaning that only two travel days followed the holiday in the month of November.

 

In any event, we will see how the rest of the holiday season plays out. As I mentioned above, AA just launched its nonstop to PHX in time for the holidays and the new Allegiant flight to PBI should see some strong December demand as well.

 

Be sure to leave a little extra time if you're flying around Christmas!

Allegiant Announces New Nonstop to Memphis

 

 

Allegiant will commence service on May 22

 

https://www.cvgairport.com/about/news/2020/01/14/allegiant-announces-new-nonstop-service-to-memphis-with-one-way-fares-as-low-as-$55

Odd choice. Lots of Elvis fans in Cincy?

 

The tourism folks should jump on this and put out some commercials and billboards in Memphis advertising Cincy.

CVG-MEM is part of a massive Allegiant expansion. Over 40 new routes have been announced including a number of non-warm weather city pairs.

1 hour ago, Robuu said:

Odd choice. Lots of Elvis fans in Cincy?

 

The tourism folks should jump on this and put out some commercials and billboards in Memphis advertising Cincy.

 

It definitely seems like an odd choice, but it's only a twice weekly seasonal flight. I wonder if they are using it more as a re-positioning flight to get a plane to Memphis for a higher volume route, given that CVG is one of their main airports and they have a few planes based there.  

CVG Passenger Stats for December

 

December:

2018: 668,917

2019: 718,487

Var: +7.4%

 

YTD

2018: 8,865,568

2019: 9,103,554

Var: +2.7%

 

CVG just released its December passenger numbers and they were massive. Dec 2019 saw 50,000 more passengers pass through CVG compared to 2018 which is a huge 7.4% increase YoY. This takes the final passenger numbers for 2019 up to 9,103,554, up nearly 2.7% vs. LY. Having flown into and out of CVG twice this holiday season, I can confirm it was humming. 

 

This is great news for the airport and hopefully this leads to another strong year in 2020. I wouldn't be surprised to see Delta upgrade its Phoenix nonstop to year-round and in that case, American would likely follow suit. Other routes to keep an eye on would be Delta to Austin and possibly an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin. 

 

**To clarify the CVG-AUS Delta route, it is currently operated by a CRJ9 and with Delta expanding in Austin, I wouldn't be surprised to see this upgauged to a mainline flight on a B717.

Edited January 16, 20205 yr by LtCheese

No press release but starting in the first week of June, DL will be increasing the CVG-RDU frequency to 3x daily. They (Endeavour) currently operate a CRJ200 and a CRJ700 on the route but a second CRJ2 will be added.

 

Google Flights shows this additional frequency starting 6/8 but obviously subject to change. 

1 hour ago, LtCheese said:

No press release but starting in the first week of June, DL will be increasing the CVG-RDU frequency to 3x daily. They (Endeavour) currently operate a CRJ200 and a CRJ700 on the route but a second CRJ2 will be added.

 

Google Flights shows this additional frequency starting 6/8 but obviously subject to change. 

Now if only they would just increase the ORD route to a CRJ7 OR 9  Alot of folks would be happy. Not sure what numbers Delta is looking at but the flight is constantly oversold especially the morning flight time. 

10 minutes ago, savadams13 said:

Now if only they would just increase the ORD route to a CRJ7 OR 9  Alot of folks would be happy. Not sure what numbers Delta is looking at but the flight is constantly oversold especially the morning flight time. 

 

Oh wow I didn't realize every flight was a CRJ2. Yikes. I wonder if that might change since UA is flying the CRJ550s to ORD now. Obviously the 550 is still a "50 seat" jet, the more premium heavy layout might force DL to move to CRJ7 or 9 to take advantage of the increase in premium seats.

7 hours ago, LtCheese said:

 

Oh wow I didn't realize every flight was a CRJ2. Yikes. I wonder if that might change since UA is flying the CRJ550s to ORD now. Obviously the 550 is still a "50 seat" jet, the more premium heavy layout might force DL to move to CRJ7 or 9 to take advantage of the increase in premium seats.

 

With United cutting mainline to Chicago, Delta needs to set up and fill the void. The business community will fill the seats. 

Big changes coming to CVG food, drink offerings

Goodbye Starbucks, hello Dunkin’ Donuts.

 

The Kenton County Airport Board, which oversees the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, approved a new 10-year contract for major food and beverage providers at the airport, and travelers will notice some significant changes.

 

Currently, there are four Starbucks at CVG. The new contract with SSP America will reduce that number to two and add two Dunkin’ Donuts franchises. The Starbucks locations that will be replaced are in Concourse A and the west side of Concourse B. That will leave one Starbucks in the main terminal before security and a second at the top of the escalator to Concourse B.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/01/21/big-changes-coming-to-cvg-food-drink-offerings.html

? Dunkin has to be the worst new vendor coming to CVG. Bad decision by the airport board. There coffee might be ok but the food just plain awful. 

I mean, I could see Dunkin' at Lunken...

Quote

SSP won the contract after the existing operator, HMS Host, did not bid, according to CVG CEO Candace McGraw.

 

HMS Host is everywhere; why wouldn't they bid?

Airfares at CVG Remain Lowest in Region

The U.S. Department of Transportation released its average airfare ranking report for third quarter 2019, and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) once again has the lowest airfares in the region.

 

 

CVG ranked #80 – average fare $314

Columbus (CMH) ranked #49 – average fare $359

Indianapolis (IND) ranked #46 – average fare $360

Louisville (SDF) ranked #36 – average fare $377

Dayton (DAY) ranked #3 – average fare $445

 

 

It's crazy to see the fares at DAY. They have seen pretty significant cuts in capacity over the past couple of years and it shows.

5 hours ago, Cygnus said:

 

HMS Host is everywhere; why wouldn't they bid?

 

HMS Host has operated almost every restaurant at the airport for at least the last twenty years and they are downright horrible. Which makes me glad they didn't place a bid.

17 hours ago, savadams13 said:

? Dunkin has to be the worst new vendor coming to CVG. Bad decision by the airport board. There coffee might be ok but the food just plain awful. 

 

I disagree completely.  When it comes to Dunkin and Starbucks, most visit for coffee or specialty drinks, not food.  Dunkin coffee is light years better than Starbucks and also usually cheaper.  Too bad I no longer work at CVG, I was always wanted a Dunkin there. (There was one out in C Concourse for a few years back in the mid 2000's but didn't survive the Delta downsizing.)

12 minutes ago, LtCheese said:

It's crazy to see the fares at DAY. They have seen pretty significant cuts in capacity over the past couple of years and it shows.

 

Furthermore, most of those cuts were the removal of a fairly low cost option in Southwest. Now, they are left with only a handful of seasonal flights from a low-cost airline with Allegiant. 

 

CVG's low average fare is obviously driven by the fact that Allegiant and Frontier both use it as a "focus" city. CMH's average would probably be a bit lower if Allegiant were flying there instead of LCK, but I can't imagine it would bump it down too much. 

 

It would be interesting to see how the averages would compare if you exclude the ultra low cost (Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant) airlines from the equation. That measurement would be more useful in terms of determining the average cost of business travel. 

CVG sets new yearly record

 

 

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport set a new record for the number of local passengers it served in 2019, topping the previous mark, which was set in 2018.

 

In 2019, 4,336,775 passengers originating from CVG flew from the airport, an increase of 4.2% over 2018.

 

Low-cost carriers Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines have been driving passenger growth at CVG for the last six years. The airport now gets 28% of its traffic from low-cost carriers compared with 72% from the legacy airlines. The change has driven down airfares and continues to bring local passengers back to the market.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/01/22/cvg-sets-new-yearly-record.html

36 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

CVG sets new yearly record

 

 

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport set a new record for the number of local passengers it served in 2019, topping the previous mark, which was set in 2018.

 

In 2019, 4,336,775 passengers originating from CVG flew from the airport, an increase of 4.2% over 2018.

 

Low-cost carriers Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines and Southwest Airlines have been driving passenger growth at CVG for the last six years. The airport now gets 28% of its traffic from low-cost carriers compared with 72% from the legacy airlines. The change has driven down airfares and continues to bring local passengers back to the market.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/01/22/cvg-sets-new-yearly-record.html

 

 

Be careful what you believe as stats tend to say whatever the presenter wants them to say.  Passenger traffic at CVG actually peaked in the early 2000s, at more than double the current traffic counts.

 

Edited January 22, 20205 yr by thesenator

As it clearly states they broke the record for local passengers, aka passengers originating from CVG.  They had a lot more total passengers back in the Delta hub days but that was due to a huge number of layovers who were simply flying through CVG.  

6 hours ago, richNcincy said:

 

I disagree completely.  When it comes to Dunkin and Starbucks, most visit for coffee or specialty drinks, not food.  Dunkin coffee is light years better than Starbucks and also usually cheaper.  Too bad I no longer work at CVG, I was always wanted a Dunkin there. (There was one out in C Concourse for a few years back in the mid 2000's but didn't survive the Delta downsizing.)

Have to agree to disagree with you. I travel weekly for work and at least Starbucks has healthy on the go food options. I don't feel like complete sh*t after eating food at Starbucks like Dunkin.

Yeah, no one is saying this is the same number of passengers as when it was a hub.  

 

It's a pretty stark turnaround though.  They've really picked up the pace from the dark days of 2012-2013.  Good growth so far, and if they can maintain it, you can envision CVG handling ten million passengers a year, which would be a great recovery.  

17 hours ago, cbussoccer said:

It would be interesting to see how the averages would compare if you exclude the ultra low cost (Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant) airlines from the equation. That measurement would be more useful in terms of determining the average cost of business travel. 

 

Agreed. Delta and Endeavour account for about 40% of the traffic out of CVG with the non-ULCCs making up about 36%. There is also a decent amount of competition on many routes between legacy carriers and/or SWA.

 

10 hours ago, jdm00 said:

It's a pretty stark turnaround though.  They've really picked up the pace from the dark days of 2012-2013.  Good growth so far, and if they can maintain it, you can envision CVG handling ten million passengers a year, which would be a great recovery.  

 

I think 10MM pax/year is more than reasonable within 2 years. Increased frequencies and upgauging alone would go a long way towards that and that is to say nothing of new routes/airlines.

Obviously the people using ULCCs aren't all going to go to a different airport or not fly. Some would have used Delta, United, etc. The numbers would certainly be lower, but some of those trips would happen.

CVG fares rank among cheapest in the Midwest

 

The average fare at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is the third cheapest in the Midwest, according to new data from the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

 

The latest rankings of the top 100 airports in the U.S. based on passenger volume show that CVG is cheaper than every other Midwestern airport with the exception of Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport and Chicago-Midway International Airport.

 

CVG’s average fare was $314.37 in the third quarter of 2018, up from $305.77 a year ago. It is the 23rd-cheapest airport to fly from in the U.S., which includes airports in Hawaii. Cleveland’s average fare was $307.93, while Chicago-Midway’s was $307.56.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/01/23/cvg-fares-rank-among-cheapest-in-the-midwest.html

 

^Is that photo supposed to be CVG with the Cincy skyline in the background?

19 minutes ago, Pugu said:

^Is that photo supposed to be CVG with the Cincy skyline in the background?

 

Lol, if so, Southwest has really grown their presence at CVG and the Cincy skyline has gotten a lot taller!

 

More than likely the article and photo was meant for the Chicago biz journal and the Cincinnati paper just amended the story slightly for its use. 

@ColDayMan plays by his own rules and doesn't always post photos from the articles and posts a photo of his choosing.

 

The cheapest airport was in Chicago, so he posted a photo of that airport. (I'm guessing that's why he chose that photo, since the article does say Chicago is the cheapest)

^ & ^^  Okay, thanks. At first, I thought, man, Cincy is looking great! And then I thought it may have been an inappropriate (to the story) photo.

 

London calling? Speculation builds on CVG-U.K. flight 

By Chris Wetterich  – Staff reporter and columnist, Cincinnati Business Courier

 

Cincinnati is in a race with St. Louis to land the next British Airways direct flight from the Midwest. At least that’s what St. Louis airport and government officials believe.

 

more

You would think that by announcing this the way St. Louis did they are recognizing that Cincinnati is in the lead.

1) it is closer and more convenient to travel (cheaper operating costs)

2) with the P&G and Kroger connections as well as GE all having large operations over there (and now Mercy Health) there is a decent amount of demand in the local area. (I dont know about St. Louis business community) 

3) The Cincinnati airport has better infastructure to handle the flight.

4) Whatever other economic incentives the cities have to offer will probably be a wash 

St. Louis has many more one world members than Cincinnati though since St.Louis use to be an American hub. Wonder if that will be taken into effect 

With the de-emphasis on airline alliances over the past few years, I don't see that being a major factor in BA determining where to fly.

 

Here's a (not complete) list of BA flights to non Oneworld hubs:

AUS

ATL

BOS

BNA

SAN

SJC

SEA

PDX

 

BA is going to be looking for consistent load factors much more than some legacy AAdvantage elite members from a decade old hub.

Man STL is a terrible airport. CVG is a lot more convenient to use, and it's closer to a lot more population hubs than St. Louis is. 

Interesting to see that the analysis shows CVG, CLE, and CMH, and Indy (not sure of that code) all on the list as airports with 30,000+ fliers but no direct.  That would seem to be a positive for CVG/CMH/Indy getting the flight -- in theory, you could get some of the fliers from the nearby market (though maybe the 2 hours is just too far to expect folks to drive).  

4 hours ago, jdm00 said:

(though maybe the 2 hours is just too far to expect folks to drive)

 

It's not. Just a few years ago, Cincinnatians were routinely driving to CMH and IND to save some money (and DAY, but that's a shorter drive). And that was often for domestic flights; I expect the tolerance would be greater for international flights. CVG now has much cheaper flights, so it's not done much anymore. (DAY is suffering without that traffic boost.)

3 minutes ago, Robuu said:

 

It's not. Just a few years ago, Cincinnatians were routinely driving to CMH and IND to save some money (and DAY, but that's a shorter drive). And that was often for domestic flights; I expect the tolerance would be greater for international flights. CVG now has much cheaper flights, so it's not done much anymore. (DAY is suffering without that traffic boost.)

It needs to be significantly cheaper to make the drive worthwhile though. I was looking at prices for flying to Paris from CMH (obviously not direct) and CVG recently and most of the time the price is actually pretty comparable. At times it might be about $100-$150 to fly from CVG, but that’s not enough of a price difference for me to to make the drive down. Although the flight from CVG would be direct, the ~2 hour drive would essentially negate the time I would be saving by skipping a layover. Furthermore, I can have family/friends help me with pickup/drop off in Columbus but in Cincinnati I’m stuck with paying to park for the duration of my trip. 

I think we need to keep in mind the market this flight will be targeting. BA is going to be catering to the business traveler and the nonstop is going to exist for the convenience of saving 1-3 hours of connection time. I was looking at AUS-LHR since Austin is similar enough to CVG and the BA nonstop is routinely $150-$200 more than a comparable one stop itinerary on AA or DL. 

 

On 1/23/2020 at 4:44 PM, CMHOhio said:

the Cincy skyline has gotten a lot taller!

 

9 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

 

You win the internet for today! That is awesome.

Who remembers when we got the Delta flight back in 1987~?  They put up billboards all over town with those fuzzy-hatted Buckingham Palace guards.  

The Gatwick flight had a lot of travelers on it. THere was a strong built in Cincy connection. GE, P&G amongst others sent a lot of people there. GE also sent a ton to Paris which is why there is still that flight, but the Gatwick flight was fairly popular.

Given its history, I can see a London flight coming back. They had no history with StL 

^There was also the time when they flew the Concorde into Cincinnati around 1990.  I don't know why they did it, but it was a big ego lift for all of Cincinnati.  We got to pretend we were super big-time for a day.   

 

Ooh - I found an article on it.  Turns out some company chartered the Concorde as a publicity stunt.  That's pretty big-time, actually:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cincom-celebrates-25th-anniversary-bringing-195124274.html

CVG Passenger Stats for January 2020

 

January:

2019: 590,977

2020: 628,729

Var: +6.4%

 

YTD

2019: 590,977

2020: 628,729

Var: +6.4%
 

January kicked off 2020 strong with a 6.4% growth YoY. I feel like January went by in a flash and there wasn't a whole lot of news that came out as far as flight ops. SWA is cutting back frequency to MDW to 4x weekdays, 1x Sat, and 3x Sun due to the MAX groundings. We do also have some data on Southwest and Frontier load factors from November (h/t to user jplatts at airliners.com):

 

Southwest:
CVG-BWI - 68.17%
CVG-DEN - 85.62%
CVG-MCO - 76.46%
CVG-MDW - 70.77%
CVG-PHX - 95.54%

Frontier:
CVG-ATL - 80.62%
CVG-AUS - 79.48%
CVG-DEN - 82.70%
CVG-FLL - 72.28%
CVG-JAX - 72.78%
CVG-LAS - 82.88%
CVG-LAX - 89.98%
CVG-LGA - 89.11%
CVG-MCO - 79.81%
CVG-MIA - 67.94%
CVG-MSY - 75.87%
CVG-PHL - 71.15%
CVG-PHX - 74.43%
CVG-RSW - 75.17%
CVG-SFO - 76.03%
CVG-SRQ - 59.89%
CVG-TPA - 81.22%

 

 

More evidence that CVG could certainly accommodate at least 2 daily frequencies to PHX year round from AA/DL/SWA. I would expect to see that happen at some point soon.

Edited February 17, 20205 yr by LtCheese

On 2/7/2020 at 6:26 PM, jmecklenborg said:

^There was also the time when they flew the Concorde into Cincinnati around 1990.  I don't know why they did it, but it was a big ego lift for all of Cincinnati.  We got to pretend we were super big-time for a day.   

 

Ooh - I found an article on it.  Turns out some company chartered the Concorde as a publicity stunt.  That's pretty big-time, actually:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cincom-celebrates-25th-anniversary-bringing-195124274.html

It was here again in the mid 90s too. I went down one of the trails at the ends of the runways to get a pic of it flying over and it ended up going the other way. Doh! This was pre 9-11 to so im betting id be arrested if i went there again to try the same thing on an active runway area. I saw the one you mention above fly over my parents house in Price Hill. It was breathtaking.