Airport No Longer Handles At Least 1% Of Nation's Air Traffic

Scheduled flights at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport have been cut to the point that CVG will not be listed as one of the nation's busiest airports for the first time since 1993, according to the FAA.

An airport must account for at least one percent of the nation's air traffic to be listed by the Bureau Of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the FAA as a "large domestic hub", and CVG no longer qualifies. Cutbacks in the number of flights by Delta, the principal tenant at the airport, and other airlines account for the decline.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Delta announced another round of cuts to be implemented in February, leaving the airline with direct flights to only 70 cities, and some 225 daily departures. The airport had handled as many as 650 daily departures as recently as early 2005. The number of passengers arriving and departing from CVG has declined from 22.7 million to 10 million over the same period.

Delta still calls Cincinnati a hub airport, but it has fallen from being second only to Atlanta to being the airline's smallest hub airport.

CVG will be de-listed by the BTS monthly reports next year, but statistics for the airport will still be available online.

FMI: www.bts.gov