A guilty pleasure of mine is watching aviation explainer videos. Sometimes they are very good. But even when they’re broadly good I’m too autistic not to get a nervous tick about claims that aren’t quite right. So while I enjoyed this new video about Delta’s former Cincinnati hub, I just had to walk through why the real cause of its demise wasn’t happenstance or Delta merging with Northwest.
That’s the code claim: that the 2008 Delta – Northwest merger was “the” cause of de-hubbing Cincinnati, calling it the result of “a single corporate decision.” While acknowledging Delta’s Cincinnati cuts three years before the merger, those are waved away merely as “prelude.”
Cincinnati was doomed as a hub whether Delta and Northwest merged or not. It lacked sufficient lucrative high yield local traffic. It supported mostly high seat cost regional jets, and the hub was in decline for three years before the merger as oil prices rose.
But all wasn’t lost for Cincinnati! Amazon established its primary U.S. cargo hub there, and it’s DHL’s ‘Global Super Hub’ for the Americas. That’s not as sexy, but it handles millions of tons of cargo annually and the airport is more lucrative overall for the community than it was 20 years ago, especially considering the passenger service that remains as part of the mix.
The Delta bankruptcy and Northwest merger together accelerated formal ‘de-hubbing’. Delta acquired the better Detroit hub in that deal and they were too close to each other (229 miles apart) and a very basic lesson in route planning is that you don’t make money overflying your own hubs, or at least you need to be very careful in doing so.
Credit: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport is actually in Boone County, Kentucky, near Hebron, serving the broader Cincinnati tri-state region. (The CVG code comes from Covington, Kentucky which was the nearest major city.)
- In 2005 it peaked with 22.78 passengers, and that was down to 8.97 million in 2025 (or about 39% of peak).
- There were over 600 daily departures at hub peak, and that’s down to around 134 per day.
- But today’s service is also a real recovery from a 2013 low of just 5.72 million passengers.
Credit: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
The airport opened on January 10, 1947. American, Delta, and TWA moved from the old Lunken airport and the first arrival was an American Airlines DC-3 from Cleveland. Delta came in one minute later.
Most of the service as part of Delta’s second largest hub was actually Delta Connection flying operated by Comair using 50-seat Bombardier CRJs. Those are cheaper to operate than a full-size mainline jet, but higher cost per seat. And after the 89-day pilot strike in 2001, higher wages the airline agreed to spread over relatively few passengers made the operating economics worse.
Cincinnati wasn’t working as a huge and Delta began gutting it in 2005. That year’s 22.78 million passengers fell to 16.25 million in 2006 (when Delta cut more than a quarter of flights), and 13.63 million in 2008 the year Delta and Northwest merged.
Credit: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport
Delta had been 95% of the airport’s passengers in 2005. And it wasn’t a hub for local passengers, it was a connecting hub that happened to be near Cincinnati. In 2006, more than two-thirds of passengers were connecting. In 2017, that was down to just 7%. It now serves the local community well, with about 70% of local travelers reaching their destinations non-stop. And the airport still has London and Paris flights.
The dominant carrier is still Delta with 34% of the market (24% mainline, 10% Endeavor regional). Frontier and Allegiant each have 12% of the market and American 9%.
In the end, the hub at Cincinnati didn’t disappear “almost overnight” as the video suggests. It was already in decline for three years. And suggesting “local demand remained stable” misses the point that the hub was losing money with that stable demand, which is why Delta began gutting in as they tried to turn around their fortunates in bankruptcy. It was stable at too low a level!
If Cincinnati worked well as a passenger hub, another airline would open one. But airlines are mostly low margin, capital-intensive, heavily unionized and regulated businesses where it’s difficult to make money. Margin comes largely from premium products and brand, including extending the brand to a bank partner’s credit card. Cincinnati isn’t a great market for this, but it’s one that’s found a way to support aviation and strong flight options for the people who live there.
@This comes to mind — Is this an Ohio-thing, or is CVG technically in Kentucky…
@1990: CVG is very much in Kentucky. It’s actually a few miles south of the Ohio River. Not a bad airport really, and I do remember connecting there about 20 years ago (Comair was usually involved).
Did the merger kill it? Not as much as mergers killed hubs like PIT, MEM or STL…but it did lead into the dehubbing. Probably would have been dehubbed anyway but not as quickly without the merger.It’s certainly a different kind of facility now than it was back in it’s heyday. Totally different vidbe. Much more relaxed and friendly.
@stogieguy7 — Reminds me of a scene from the show Futurama: “Oh, no catch… Although we are technically in New Jersey.” (“Not one place even remotely livable.”) @L737!
I live in rural Kentucky and fly out of six different airports CVG, CMH, SDF, LEX, HTS, and CRW. CVG is our most commonly used airport. Aside from having the lowest fares typically in the area, which is quite the contrast from back in the Delta days when it was the most expensive, there is no real major advantage to the airport.
It has all of the inconvenience of a large hub because it used to be a large hub, such as requiring a shuttle from a long-term parking lot, a train between terminals or long walk, shuttle to car rental area (although this just changed in the last year thank goodness), and a lot of walking in general, but it doesn’t have the volume of direct flights of a large hub nor the lounges that large hubs have, and not a large selection of convenient flight times. It does have a decent amount of LCC flights though and Allegiant has made it a mini hub at this point.
The hub’s dependence on 50 seat RJs killed it.
A hub with so many 50 seat RJs that are heavily used for connections simply did not work then. 50 seat RJs used even to mainline flights doesn’t work now. If you are going to connect, mainline to mainline connections works best which is why DL has the smallest percentage of regional jets of the 4 US airlines that have them while using its RJs more for point to point markets including to/from NYC and its “focus cities” than AA, AS or UA.
the same issued doomed other Midwest hubs; DL, as usual, saw the economic trends and addressed the before other airlines.
@sotgieguy7 mergers didn’t kill the US hub in PIT. When US exited their second bankruptcy they cancelled their gate leases at PIT, dumping the hub and choosing to focus on PHL and CLT instead. Happened overnight with no warning to PIT whatsoever. PIT as a hub was dead long before America West got hold of them.
Cincinnati has special meaning to me so I’ll always enjoy visiting. Nice airport. Would’ve been cool if they had a big lounge that could’ve been inherited by Delta like thet did at MEM.
@1990 – Suspiciously fantastic…!
737,
the Sky Club at CVG – which was built by DL along w/ the rest of the huge new concourse that is way underutilized now – is about 9000 feet which was pretty large at the time it was built and pretty large for the size of the operation DL has there now.
@Tim Dunn — Oh, good call – I last flew to CVG via Delta last year and didn’t visit for whatever reason so I forgot about its existence. On my list to check out next time for sure!
@Parker. You are correct, US was in bad financial shape before 9/11. However, the leases were cancelled when emerging from their first bankruptcy, at the beginning of 2003. Then they asked for an absurd about of money from the county & state, to secure the hub.
Cargo is smart enough to realize that SkyPesos are worthless. Are Delta fanbots equally smart?
I used to fly Delta from ATL-DAY or CVG all the time in the early 2000s. Flights to CVG were consistently about 50% higher. The drive home from DAY was only 20 minutes more, which made it worth choosing for a poor student.
PIT was the best HUB in the country. super easy to transfer with the X shape layout.
Crewmembers used to call CVG “Cincitucky”
Such irony in correcting another content creator’s precision, while completely ignoring grammar and spelling…if you’re going to communicate in written English, at least make an attempt to use it properly.