DAL in CVG
 

Saw over the weekend that there was to be a "town hall meeting" in CVG today. Here is what was put out on Delta Net. Would love to hear from someone who was actually there.

Delta leaders traveled to Cincinnati Monday to meet with cross-divisional employees and share strategic thinking about our operations and outlook at the hub. Glen Hauenstein, e.v.p.-Network Planning and Revenue Management, Steve Gorman, e.v.p. and chief operating officer, and Gil West, s.v.p.-Airport Customer Service, met at the airport Monday morning with more than 200 employees from Airport Customer Service, Delta Cargo, Flight Operations, In-Flight Service, Reservation Sales and Delta TechOps.

"Cincinnati is a viable and ongoing hub in the Delta network," Steve told employees. "This station has a reputation as a very well-managed and collaborative hub with excellent customer service."
Glen discussed the effects of the global economy on our network and specifically how it relates to CVG operations.
"International is likely to be more challenging over the next several years as carriers have added a lot of capacity in the marketplace," he told employees. "The dynamics of the domestic operations are changing and may be more favorable as we emerge from this current economic cycle." The leaders also visited the Reservations call center to meet with Res leadership in the afternoon. They also met with Comair leaders and CVG civic and community leaders afterward.

Don't know what happened at the meeting but its the best through flight hub in the DAL system.

I posted in the "DAL Latest & Greatest" thread last night about some memos and emails from Cincinnati area businesses regarding the slow pull out of CVG.

Apparently, local businesses are telling the local government that they will move out if DAL pulls out.

Does anyone have any info to back this up?

-Fatty

The keep saying they are committed to CVG, yet every other day they pull a flight. DAL is down to 40 flights in March, only 2 widebodys(fra+cdg), and only 2 flights on 757's (lgw+slc). The rest are on M88/M90/737.

Actions speak louder than words, and the same thing that happened to DFW is going to happen to CVG!

MEM is probably next.

If CVG makes money, it stays. If it loses money, or more can be made elsewhere it should go. Simple equation for the management guys.

I'm sure you remember DAL pilot bases at Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, DFW, Houston, New Orleans, Boston, Miami, and Orlando. IFS now has virtual basing in a couple of those places.

CVG does make money, it has had the highest fares in the country for the past couple of years. The problem is that DL keeps downsizing it and more and more passengers are choosing to drive a little to save alot. CVG makes money, but closing CVG and routing all that feed thru DTW will save make Delta alot more than keeping CVG open.

Remember CVG has the 2nd smallest metro area out of all the hubs, and it has the smallest number of O&D passengers. DTW has a brand new facility and can easilty accomodate all of CVG's traffic.

MEM is a little more complicated as its a fairly larger community, its a little further from ATL, and i'm not sure how much more traffic ATL can handle. Closing MEM might not be a feasable option....yet.

MEM has a lot more going for it than CVG in my opinion. One major factor is FedEx. Whether people believe it or not, Fred Smith would have something to say about a MEM base closing, considering over half of his pilots commute into MEM on the airlines. Also MEM doesn't have nearly the amount of winter weather that CVG goes and so it operates very efficiently all year around. And yes, MEM is further from ATL than CVG is from DTW, and ATL can't handle any more flights. I see MEM growing as a regional hub with some west coast flights remaining and maybe even some int'l flights on top of the current Amsterdam route. Just an opinion, but I don't see MEM closing.

Delta could give a rat's ass about what Fred Smith thinks. We craft routes and bases based on our revenue not whether or not guys can commute. We also don't care about the weather. We fly regardless. That's why NY and Salt Lake are instrumental in our plans. Memphis is a nice little operation that can't compare, right now, to the rest of our bases. Its our old New Orleans base which we closed several years ago. If we're gonna keep Memphis open, we'd be much better off reopening DFW. Plus, MEM international? What are you smoking? The real international business is not out of a small southeast hub but the growing Atlanta and LA business to South America and Asia. Not too many hounddogs wanting to fly to Europe, Asia or Brazil. LOTS of displaced immigrants wanting to go home.

CVG has some outstanding selling points. Not tooting my regions own horn so to speak, but here are some of the facts taken from the CVG website.

-Nine Fortune 500 companies have headquarters here (ranks 6th per capita)
-360 Forturne 500 companies have operations within the region
-two thirds of the nation's top business and leisure destinations are within an hour's flight
-Since 1987 when CVG went non-stop international, the number of foreign firms has tripled
-for over 15 years, its been rated as one of America's most passenger-friendly airports
-according to the FAA, CVG has fewer enroute restrictions, less weather related flow restrictions, faster turnaround and reduced taxi time
-3 parallel runways, a fourth runway with 12,000 length for asia / european intl flights


Cincinnati's negatives are that it is the smallest metro area with such a large airport ... and it is close to Atlanta.

-Fatty