Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is a public international airport located in Boone County, Kentucky, United States, near the community of Hebron. It is the primary commercial airport for Cincinnati, Ohio and the tri-state area. The airport's code, CVG, is derived from the nearest city at the time of the airport's opening, Covington, Kentucky. The airport covers an area of . It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2023–2027, in which it is categorized as a medium-hub primary commercial service facility.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport offers nonstop passenger service to over 50 destinations in North America and Europe, handling numerous domestic and international cargo flights every day. The airport is a cargo global hub for Amazon Air, Atlas Air, ABX Air, Kalitta Air, and DHL Aviation. The airport is currently the 5th busiest airport in the United States by cargo traffic and 12th largest in the world. CVG is the fastest-growing cargo airport in North America.
History
Beginnings
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration approved preliminary funds for site development of the Greater Cincinnati Airport on February 11, 1942. This was part of the United States Army Air Corps program to establish training facilities during World War II. At the time, air traffic in the area centered on Lunken Airport just southeast of central Cincinnati. Lunken opened in 1926 in the Ohio River Valley; it frequently experienced fog, and the 1937 flood submerged its runways and two-story terminal building. Federal officials wanted an airfield site that would not be prone to flooding, but Cincinnati officials hoped to build Lunken into the region's main airport.
Officials from Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties in Kentucky took advantage of Cincinnati's short-sightedness and lobbied Congress to build an airfield there. Boone County officials offered a suitable site on the provision that Kenton County paid the acquisition cost. In October 1942, Congress provided $2 million to build four runways.
The field opened August 12, 1944, with the first B-17 bombers beginning practice runs on August 15. As the tide of the war had already turned, the Air Corps only used the field until it was declared surplus in 1945.
On October 27, 1946, a small wooden terminal building opened and the airport prepared for commercial service under the name Greater Cincinnati Airport. Boone County Airlines was the first airline to provide scheduled service from the airport and had its headquarters at the airport.
The first commercial flight, an American Airlines DC-3 from Cleveland, landed on January 10, 1947, at 9:53 am. A Delta Air Lines flight followed moments later. The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 97 weekday departures: 37 American, 26 Delta, 24 TWA, 8 Piedmont, and 2 Lake Central. As late as November 1959 the airport had four runways at 45-degree angles, the north–south runway eventually being extended into today's runway 18C/36C.
In the 1950s Cincinnati city leaders began pushing for expansion of a site in Blue Ash to both compete with the Greater Cincinnati Airport and replace Lunken as the city's primary airport. The city purchased Hugh Watson Field in 1955, turning it into Blue Ash Airport. The city's Blue Ash plans were hampered by community opposition, three failed Hamilton County bond measures, political infighting, and Cincinnati's decision not to participate in the federal airfield program.
Jet age
left|thumb|270x270px|Main atrium
On December 16, 1960, the jet age arrived in Cincinnati when a Delta Air Lines Convair 880 from Miami completed the first scheduled jet flight. The airport needed to expand and build more modern terminals and other facilities; the original Terminal A was expanded and renovated. The north–south runway was extended from . In 1964, the board approved a $12 million bond to expand the south concourse of Terminal A by and provide nine gates for TWA, American, and Delta.
In 1988, two founders of Comair, Patrick Sowers and Robert Tranter launched a new scheduled airline from CVG named Enterprise Airlines, which served 16 cities at its peak. The airline spearheaded the regional jet revolution in a unique manner by operating 10-seat Cessna Citation business jets in scheduled services. The flights became popular with Cincinnati companies. The airline served destinations including Baltimore, Boston, Cedar Rapids, Columbus (OH), Green Bay, Greensboro, Greenville, Hartford, Memphis, Milwaukee, New York–JFK, and Wilmington (NC). The airline also became the first international feed carrier by feeding the British Airways Concorde at JFK. In 1991, the airline ceased operations because of high fuel prices and the suspension of the British Airways contract after the first Gulf War.
Delta Air Lines hub
thumb|Delta Air Lines [[Boeing 767-300ER heading to Paris in 2015]]
thumb|Concourse C in 2016
In the mid-1980s, Delta opened a hub in Cincinnati and constructed Terminals C and D with 22 gates. During the decade, Delta ramped up both mainline and Comair operations and established Delta Connection. Delta's continued growth at CVG then prompted them to spend $550 million to build their own terminal facility in the 1990s. The new terminal, known then as Terminal 3, opened in 1994 and would largely replace Terminal D. Terminal 3 consisted of three airside concourses, with most of Terminal D's gate space being repurposed into Terminal 3's Concourse A while Concourses B and C were new construction. Concourses A and B were parallel concourses connected to Terminal 3's main building by an underground walkway which also included a people mover (a similar layout to Delta's main hub at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport). Concourse C was only accessible by shuttle buses and was a ground-level facility for regional aircraft used by Delta Connection (operated by Comair). After the opening of Terminal 3, the former Terminals B and C were renamed Terminals 1 and 2 respectively, which continued to house non-Delta airlines.
Aircraft operations dramatically increased from around 300,000 to 500,000 yearly aircraft movements. In turn, passenger volumes doubled within a decade from 10 million to over 20 million. This expansion prompted the building of runway 18L/36R and the airport began making preparations to construct Concourse D while adding an expansion to Concourse A and B.
At its peak, CVG became Delta's second largest hub, handling over 600 flights daily in 2005. The hub served everything from a 64-mile flight to Dayton, to a daily nonstop to Honolulu and Anchorage, to transatlantic destinations including Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Munich, Paris, Rome, and Zürich. Additionally, Air France operated flights into CVG for several periods for over a decade before finally terminating the service in 2007.
When Delta went into bankruptcy in September 2005, a large reduction at CVG eliminated most early-morning and night flights. Concourse C, which had opened in 1994 at a cost of $50 million, was permanently closed in 2008 and demolished in 2016, since it was built for smaller regional jets which were going out of fashion, and it was not connected to the people mover system. Further reductions in early 2010 caused Delta to close Concourse A in Terminal 3 on May 1, consolidating all operations into Concourse B. This resulted in the layoff of more than 800 employees.
By 2011, Delta was down to roughly 130 flights per day at CVG. After several years of cuts to its older fleet, which were cited as being cut due to high costs associated with rising oil prices, Delta's wholly owned and CVG-based subsidiary, Comair, ceased all operations in September 2012, ending over three decades of operations. In 2017, the hub was downgraded to a focus city, which was eliminated in 2021.
Recent history
thumb|Concourse B ramp tower
Until 2015, CVG consistently ranked among the most expensive major airports in the United States. Delta operated over 75% of flights at CVG, a fact often cited as a reason for relatively high domestic ticket prices. Airline officials suggested that Delta was practicing predatory pricing to drive away discount airlines. From 1990 to 2003, ten discount airlines began service at CVG, but later pulled out, including Vanguard Airlines, which pulled out of CVG twice. After Delta downsized its hub operations, low cost carriers began operations and have been sustained at the airport ever since.
Terminal 2 was closed in May 2012, and CVG re-opened and consolidated all non-Delta airlines to Concourse A in Terminal 3 at that time, which became the sole terminal. Renovation and expansion of the ticketing/check-in area and Concourse A took place that year to accommodate the move. Terminals 1 and 2 were torn down in early 2017 to construct an overnight parking and deicing area. Both concourses, the customs facility, baggage claim, and ticketing areas were renovated in late 2017 to mid 2018 under a $4.5 million plan. In 2021, the airport opened a new rental car and ground transportation center adjacent to the main terminal.
Facilities
Terminal
left|thumb|241x241px|Underground walkway leading to Concourses A and B
The airport has one terminal and two concourses with a total of 51 gates. Both concourses are islands and are only accessible by an underground moving walkway and people mover. All international arrivals without pre-clearance are handled in Concourse B.
Additionally, there are several pieces of Charley Harper artwork in the Concourse B food court.
Cargo hubs
thumb|A DHL [[Boeing 767-200 (N784AX) taxiing at CVG]]
In 1984, DHL opened its CVG hub and began operations throughout the world. For a five-year period beginning in 2004, DHL moved its hub to Wilmington Air Park in Wilmington, Ohio. In 2009, DHL reversed course and moved back to CVG to resume its original operations. CVG now serves as the largest of DHL's three global hubs (the other two being Leipzig/Halle and Hong Kong) with numerous flights each day to destinations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific. DHL has completed a $105 million expansion and employs approximately 2,500 at CVG. Because of this growth, CVG stood as the 4th busiest airport in North America based on cargo tonnage and 34th in the world at the time.
thumb|[[Amazon Air Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft at CVG, its primary cargo hub]]
On May 28, 2015, DHL announced a $108M expansion to its current facility, which doubled the current cargo operations. The money was used to double the gate capacity for transferring cargo, an expansion to the sorting facility, and various technical improvements, which was completed in Autumn 2016. In addition, this has provided many more jobs for the Cincinnati area, and will dramatically increase the airport's operations.
On January 31, 2017, Amazon announced that its new cargo airline, Amazon Air would pick CVG as its main worldwide shipping hub, following an investment of $1.49B in the construction and expansion of a cargo facility on the airport grounds. The company used DHL's facilities prior to the construction of its new facility. The hub is Amazon's principal shipping hub and was constructed on of land at the airport with a sorting facility and parking positions for over 100 aircraft. On April 30, 2017, Amazon began operations at CVG with 75 Boeing 767-200ER/300ER aircraft based at the airport and planned to have 200 daily takeoffs and landings from its CVG hub to destinations across the U.S. and internationally. The hub could create up to 15,000 jobs in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region. On August 11, 2021, Amazon debuted its new cargo hub at CVG. On May 28, 2024, Atlas announced that "Atlas Air has successfully reached an agreement to fully exit their Amazon CMI operations, which no longer aligned with our company plans. Separately, through Titan, we are pleased to extend the dry leasing portion of our relationship with Amazon."
By early 2026, the Amazon Air primary hub reached its full phase-one operational capacity, managing over 200 daily flights and solidifying CVG's position as one of the top five cargo gateways in North America. The 3,000,000-square-foot facility now processes an estimated 50 million packages per month, significantly impacting the regional logistics infrastructure and workforce in Boone County.
Ground transportation
The TANK 2X bus provides direct service to Florence and downtown Cincinnati.
CVG is served by Interstate 275 via exit 4.
Airlines and destinations
Passenger
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