Delta to cut daily flight here

Delta Air Lines will cut its nonstop daily flight from Cincinnati to Charleston early next year in an effort to make the Ohio hub profitable again.

The decision marks the end of a 10-year run that began under Comair Inc., a regional affiliate that Delta purchased the same year.

Delta spokesman Kent Landers said the daily service to Charleston falls into a group of flights performing poorly at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

"It's a move we're taking to return the Cincinnati hub to profitability," he said.

Landers stressed that local customers still can connect to and from Cincinnati through Atlanta, New York and Detroit and that only the nonstop service will disappear.

"The connectivity and the access provided to customers in the Charleston area should not change," he said.

Delta Air Lines is cutting an additional 10 percent of its flights at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. Once the cuts are made in January, the hub will have its fewest number of Delta flights in at least 15 years.

The Atlanta-based carrier also is eliminating service between Cincinnati and Savannah, among other places.

The airline already cut 13 percent of its flights in Cincinnati in early September. Ohio and Kentucky officials are worried that Delta is slowly shrinking the hub to nothing.

Cincinnati now is competing with hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis because of Delta's ongoing merger with Northwest Airlines.