Delta has been aggressively expanding in the Pacific Northwest, leaving its eastern hubs more or less quiet. But for the summer season, Delta expands Cincinnati operations to cope with demand for the most popular routes. The airline will be adding capacity to some routes, adding frequencies and first class cabins.

Cincinnati Operations

Cincinnati has been a Delta hub for many years now. Since the merger with Northwest, however, the airport has seen many cuts from Delta and its partners. The biggest blow came with the departure of Air France’s flight to Paris-CDG. The airport now depends on the single trans-Atlantic flight to Paris by Delta, which flies with a 767. The airport has seen recent expansion from low cost airlines. Southwest will begin service to Cincinnati later in the year. Frontier now has a sizeable operation in the airport. Even American is resuming mainline service in April.

CVG Airport

Delta Expansion

Delta’s proposed expansion includes adding frequencies between the most popular destinations from the airport. Among these are flights to Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Orlando. The news report from a local station also states that Delta will add 6% capacity increase over the summer season. Delta will begin flights to Denver and Seattle on mainline aircraft, and add first class to their Minneapolis-St Paul flights. This is a major expansion at the airport, given that Delta over recent years has been very cautious of capacity expansion. Delta will also focus on its international destinations from the airport. These destinations include Cancun and Toronto. With these additions, Delta will continue to grow to overcome American as the largest carrier in the US based on passenger numbers.

Delta 767 to Paris

Landing Thoughts

I am very happy to see Delta expand in Cincinnati. The city is not a major city, but Delta has been committed to keeping it at least as a minor hub. The expansion is a testament to this commitment. I hope to see more airlines do similar projects at medium sized cities, in order to expand operations and allow for more connections. I expect to see lower fares in the markets out of CVG given the competition that will begin between Delta and Frontier to destinations they overlap.

What do you think? Are you happy about the Delta expansion at Cincinnati? Should more airlines expand in medium sized cities? Let us know!

All images taken from Wikimedia commons, unless otherwise noted.