Cincinnati Enquirer: 'I haven't seen this many people at the airport in a while.' Low fares, vaccine rollout boost traffic at CVG
03/19/2021
Cincinnati Enquirer / Randy Tucker / March 17 & 18, 2021
Kyle Rickard and Shelby Blevins drove down from Dayton Tuesday to catch a flight to Denver from Cincinnati because of cheaper fares.
"We got tickets for about $100 round trip, which was about $100 cheaper than flying out of Dayton,'' said Blevins, a 21-year-old student at Miami University who was headed to Denver with her cousin, Rickard, to visit relatives. "I'm off early for spring break, and he had some time off from his job, so we figured why not, especially at these prices.''
Luckily, they arrived in plenty of time to check in because they spent more time than they expected searching for a parking spot among the sea of vehicles jammed into the main terminal parking garage at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
"I haven't seen this many people at the airport in a while,'' said Blevins, who said she's made the trip to Denver several times over the past year despite the ongoing pandemic. "It (COVID-19) is going to get me or it's not going to get me, but that hasn't stopped me from traveling.''
That's good news for the airline industry, which saw passenger traffic plummet more than 90% last spring at the height of the pandemic, driving down ticket prices due to a lack of demand.
But CVG and other U.S. airports have seen a surge in fliers this month as airlines continue to cater to travelers with low fares and the COVID-19 vaccine rollout assuages the fears of anxious fliers.
A busy weekend at CVG, with busier ones to come
Nationwide, the Transportation Security Administration said it screened nearly 4 million passengers this past Friday through Sunday, the highest levels since the pandemic began.
At CVG, between 8,000 and 9,000 people passed through the TSA checkpoint at the airport on March 11 and March 12 - the second-busiest days at the airport since the pandemic began, trailing only the weekend after Christmas last year, according to Mindy Kershner, a CVG spokeswoman.
Those numbers were still about 40% lower than pre-pandemic traffic for the same days last year, but they're still an indication that the travel recovery is picking up steam.