Comments on: Delta Lowers Fares in Cincinnati, but How Much?

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:26:51 +0000

Please get Delta out of here and bring in Southwest!!!!! At least the flight attendants will talk to you on Southwest!!!!!

By: Dante

Dante — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:03:27 +0000

Delta has always had a weird relationship with Cincinnati. Maybe someone is receiveing kickbacks for the no competetion market created in Cincinnati. This is why Ohio is one of the worst states to do
business. And perhaps that explains the unemployment rates there.
That area of the country believes in few fat cats making money. Change is very difficult for Cincinnati.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:12:00 +0000

I am not sure about the cinci hub staying, however people underestimate cincinnati. It is one of the most underrated cities on the planet. Cincinnati is a leader as far as companies go with 10 fortune 500 companies based here. That is tied with minneapolis as the most in the midwest. Delta is very smart to have two hubs with so many companies. Business travelers keep airlines afloat, and both these hubs have many. Also, Cincinnati has more population than MEM and SLC, something people don’t understand. I can see why Delta is trying to keep Cincinnati. Its a city thats surprisingly big with an excellent airport. Cincinnati is actually a very profitable hub. I am very thankful for delta to see something in this city that other people don’t. Cincinnati is not a small midwest city. I am glad to see delta lowering their fares. THANKYOU DELTA!!!!

By: ben

ben — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:54:48 +0000

I was very skeptical of this fare change when it happened. However, Cincinnati flights have been substantially more booked.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:21:00 +0000

It could be a pre-emptive strike. There are credible LCC plans on the table.

By: CF

CF — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:02:54 +0000

A – Delta made a promise that it would keep all its hubs when the Northwest merger was going through. Now, I laughed when I heard that and knew it wouldn’t be true, but they have to make some sort of effort to see if they can salvage it. For many traditional airlines, the low fare structure brings in less revenue than the traditional structure, and that’s why we don’t see widespread adoption of it. But, that’s not always the case. When I was at America West in 2002, we realized that by converting to a low fare structure, we could actually increase revenues. After we made the change, our revenues actually far exceeded our initial projections and that made the hub that much more profitable. Delta clearly isn’t happy with the state of the Cincinnati hub, but they still have a lot invested there. I think it’s smart to try anything in your toolkit to see if you can improve revenues and make it profitable. Will this work? I highly doubt it. But at least they can say they tried when everyone in Cincinnati calls them out for lying about their promise to stay in town.

By: A

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:01:49 +0000

Cranky, I still don’t get why Delta would slash fares “because the hub really doesn’t have a good reason to exist anymore.” I think it should be very obvious to Delta that CVG has gotta go as a hub, unless it’s highly profitable, which nothing indicates as such. It makes more sense for them to do this if they’re trying to keep out competition like Southwest. Only someone local to Cincy would have a strong deisre to keep a lot of flights at CVG and why I still see this as more an emotional move instead of business.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:23:17 +0000

Southwest is always big on frequency, but not every route really demands that. Maybe a route to Orlando that doesn’t have many business travelers which means frequency won’t really draw in higher yield business travelers, but the lower yield high volume tourists could be more efficiently carried on a larger plane, Ryanair style. It is interesting that unlike Ryanair, Southwest doesn’t try to pull all the ancillary revenue, unlike Allegiant as well. Interesting thought about the flight attendent compliment on a plane, but I wonder how big of a deal that really is with the lowest paid members of the crew. Jet Blue pulled their A320′s down from 162 to 150 which dropped the FA’s on board to only three, but I would be curious about the cost benefit ratio of not having that fourth FA on board when load factors are north of 80%, and they have 12 less seats to sell.

By: CF

CF — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:05:51 +0000

Southwest is also big on high frequency flying in their markets, so they don’t necessarily want more capacity on a single plane like Ryanair does.

By: PF

PF — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:04:03 +0000

correction special characters greater than and less than didn’t print above

All the 737 types in the Southwest fleet have LESS than 150 seats. The 737 800 and 900 series typically have MORE than 150 seats and that requires an additional flight attendant. I would assume it is more efficient crew scheduling with the same compliment of flight attendants on every aircraft type.