It’s Not Easy Being CVG

Well, CVG doesn't have the same ring as "green," but you get the picture.

The airport, long dominated by Delta's hub operation, has historically had some of the highest fares in the country. While that's certainly not fun, the perk for the airport and the community is that Delta provided nonstop flights across the country that would not be able to stand on their own if it weren't for the connecting traffic that is created by having a hub there.

But lately the airport has seen the other side of those tradeoffs. Cincinnati service has been cut significantly ever since Delta and Northwest announced their merger, CVG has seen many cuts in service as the two airlines integrate their two route networks (having a large hub in Detroit is not good for CVG). In fact, the airport is seeing half of the capacity from Delta that it had at this time two years ago. But the average fare has dropped over 38% from 2006 to $367 . That's still higher than average, but it's much better than the $600-level fares seen in 2008.

And of course, if Delta is cutting the number of flights, it needs less employees at CVG, and it just announced 840 job cuts last week.

So, what do you think? What's more important? Low fares, or a large number of nonstops?