Denal1

I routinely fly from CVG and I love the airport...NOW! Before the merger, it could be a miserable place. I am so happy I will never be in the Comair terminal again. The airport was always packed, the seating areas inadequate and the staff sub par. I routinely spent more time waiting for bags than on planes. Since the merger, the airport is one of the best. The SC feels like a private club, the concourse is open, restaurants uncrowded. I love it now! However, my memories of the airport pre-merger are far different from the OPs. FLAME AWAY!!!!!!

DODexpat

I myself am a smoker but it still baffles me why you would have an indoors open smoking area in the food court. They couldnt at least close it in? I particularly like the TPA setup where you step outside the terminal in an enclosed area to smoke instead of going all the way through security and to a parking garage, a la PHX

StayingHomeIsBetter

The more I read FT, the more I understand just how young most of you are.

CVG was a great airport... before DL Barbi-fied it.

This was about 25 years ago, just after the last of the dinosaurs died.

A wonderful way of avoiding ATL, while making mainline-to-mainline connections.

Two (count them two) really great Crown Rooms.

Then came barbie jets, outrageous air fares, and forced devolution by the folks running the show in ATL.

Feather Man

First of all, I think all hubs shrank to some degree, except ATL, post merger.

You really think that DL bought NW only for DTW??? DTW is the epitome of the rust belt. O&D traffic (if compared fairly without the airports in MI that are within 50 miles of DTW being $400.00 cheaper than DTW flights) would be about equal. What if DTW had the HIGHEST airfares in the USA for 10 years, do you think their traffic would have been the same?

No argument that Concourse A & C left much to be desired. But what if CVG had the same investment that DTW had under NW? Hypothetical, I know.

CVG is almost exactly the same distance from ATL that MEM is. And compare delays from WX to DTW...and I don't mean now...check out the statistics from 2000 to 2008.

We went from 650 flights a day to 150 flights a day. Until the merger, we were DL's 2nd largest hub.

Yes, the merger would have been approved regardless of what DL said, but do not discount what the local government(s) would have done if they had not been so blind and stupid pre-merger. The merger affected three states, and if the collective governments had made a stink at the time of merger approval, concessions may have been made ( a la MSP)

Feather Man

If your second largest crop ( the first being the wacky weed that Thomas Hudson dabbles in) is tobacco, what would you do?

Even today, OH banned smoking in bars and restaurants. Not debating the sagacity of this decision, but I can tell you that the bars in Northern KY are booming while the bars in OH are dying

rylan

I wonder how long before the SC closes in CVG due to lack of sufficient pax... same with some of the shops and restaurants. I hope Gold Star doesn't go away.

NYBanker

Wow. That's one we don't hear often!

Based on your post, I imagine you'll be pleased to know the Cleveland is bring de-hub'd by co/UA!

Feather Man

No worries...gold star won't go away, just like the heartburn it leaves you with.

And CVG just announced that they will close Terminal 2 and move CO, UA & US into A concourse

NYBanker

@featherman - if it's any consolation, dtw has got to be next on the block. Give it 5 years or less...

avidflyer

I think the OP thinks Cleveland is a city in the state of Cincinnati not Ohio.

Feather Man

It's always nice when someone intelligent and knowledgeable chimes in

Feather Man

Actually, if I look at it without my CVG goggles on, DTW is a nice airport. But it will always be a "could of been, should of been" for me

PowerFlyer

* CVG was (and still is) a great place to connect if you were going from mainline to mainline. The problem was that you hardly ever did. As has been posted before, the bus was awful and the Terminal C building actually made the Port Authority Bus Terminal seem nice. By comparison, when going to small towns with CRJ only service, connecting in DTW is a true pleasure.

* As others have pointed out, the hub was on its deathbed before the merger happened and had DL merged with NW or UA or even CO it was likely to follow the same result. The hub was based upon a huge volume of connecting traffic using CRJs going to and from small or medium sized cities in the East and Midwest. The local traffic was almost a bonus. The economics of a CRJ don't support net hub flows anymore--particularly when so much of the traffic was traveling on cut rate T class fares. This is the same fate that MEM is going through now. It's just cheaper to run a large rolling hub in ATL and put 150 people on an MD88 than 35 people on 4 planes through 4 different hubs.

* Granted CVG doesn't have the 500+ departures it did 4-5 years ago, but 120-50 departures is something that most other cities would die for. The metro area still has significant service to cities across the country that's a lot better than every other Ohio River valley city (cf. e.g. PIT, STL).

* If CVG can maintain its lower cost structure it will likely stay a small hub/large focus city with service to cities with strong O&D.

avidflyer

But not for DL. Delta is doing anything BUT de emphasizing it. DTW is a gem of a connecting hub in both design and location. It aint going anywhere.

Feather Man

Post merger, yes. Pre-merger, who knows? How many DTW auto makers are flying to Japan? Toyota has it's N.American HQ 2 miles away from CVG