Ah the memories.....
Talked to a mid level CVG airport management type the other day. He said the sweetheart deal Delta has with the airport which basically prevents any new airline from serving CVG (deal gives Delta the same discounts airports usually use to entice new service) is going to expire in a little less than 2 years. Once that happens, hello Jetblue, SWA or Airtran. According to him anyway.
Reminds me of when DFW was a Delta hub and during the BK they asked the airport for a deal from it's gate rental fees and DFW said no dice. Then when DAL said ok, we'll shut it down, DFW was offering SWA free rent for 5 years and like $25 million worth of advertising if they would move their non-hub, hub from LUV to DFW.
I know everyone is like, hooray, lets give away free space from the majors to an LCC so that we can "stimulate" more traffic by giving away seats for free. I still fail to see why an airport needs to have more traffic? I mean, maybe CVG is a 75 flight a day (all airlines combined) airport, and hub status is not assured. If the economy were to pick up and DAL wanted to expand by 25%, I'm sure they would have to look at where they had the space, but in this market, they are probably being responsible.
LUV