I'm sure DAL mgmt does care what Fred has to say. During the congressional hearings NWA mgmt testified that FDX was NWA's fifth largest customer. $$ ultimately talks.

About a year ago, when the merger was just being discussed, I asked the network guy in indoc if having a base in CVG and a base in MEM made any sense post-merger.
He said he wasn't allowed to answer that, but that a network textbook answer would be, "No, no sense at all."

Read into that what you will.

Granted, somewhat different situation, but when that type meeting happened at Mesaba, our CVG base was closed within a couple weeks and all (save 6 pilots being furloughed) were displaced to the other bases within 2 months.

Best thing for the local market in Memphis would be if Delta did pull its hub. SWA would be in there right quick and prices on point to point traffic would come down from the stratosphere.

People would cry foul initially, but in the long run it would be better (for the consumer). :eek:

Would CVG be a better SWA hub? MEM is close to BHM.

I thought I might ruffle a few feathers with some people with my post. But, the truth of the matter is, is that so many people throughout the region come to MEM to travel. Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Western Ky, Southern Missouri, East/Central Tenn...that's quite a market to just pull out of. With CVG, many people might as well just go to DTW. I think many people would rather fly out of MEM than ATL as well to avoid the horrible traffic in ATL and the congestion with the airport. You may be right that Delta doesn't give a rat's rear about FedEx, but again, $ talks and I can assure you Mr. Smith will do everything he can do to keep an airline hub in MEM. MEM may not have as many fortune 500 companies as CVG, but the market here is much larger as far as attracting people from so many different regions to fly out of MEM. I have nothing against CVG, I actually do like it there and hope that no base closures will happen. I just think if they do MEM will survive longer than CVG will for said reasons.

Fact is that DAL can right size CVG and MEM to make them profitable no matter what their size. What they have that DFW did not, is the high dollar customers that use them, and in some cases have contracts with them.
I am sure that we will always fly mainline jets from those cities, whether we have pilots based there is another story completely.

Correct, there is no definition of hub. There will always be a DAL presence in CVG, the question is...how big?

I have to say that I am REALLY surprised that Southwest has not announced CVG, almost untrue. If Southwest comes in you can kiss CVG goodbye!

I forsee CVG and MEM becming more of a focus city as MCO once was. You have regional lift, out and backs to the other hubs, as well as service to some major destinations, such as LAX, LAS, and so on. I can tell you that local business are going for the cheaper fares, but that's really a smoke screen that's due to the decrease in frequency to domestic destinations, or routes that have been dropped totally. So if they're forced to connect to get to their destination, why not take the cheaper fare from DAY, LEX , SDF, or CMH.

MEM is not going anywhere. They are about to start demolishing the old cargo area north of the C concourse to build a new international terminal for all west bound flights ie Narita. The plan is to have all west bound intl' Delta flights leave out of MEM and all east bound itnl' flights leave out of ATL.