Southwest Airlines has been in the news quite a bit lately – first was their recent change in earning the Companion Pass – now car rental and hotel point transfers do not count towards earning the Companion Pass, but there are still a few ways that you can earn the Southwest Companion Pass in 2017. Â Then, they recently announced a fare sale, so make sure to check your existing routes and see if they have dropped in price – thanks to the awesome Southwest cancellation policy, Southwest might even end up paying you to take the same flight!
Today’s news is even more exciting for me personally as Southwest Airlines has announced that they are adding service from Cincinnati. Â Delta Airlines has historically had a stranglehold on airfares to/from CVG, but since their merger with Northwest in 2008, they have reduced service and increased fares. Â In recent years, CVG has finally gotten service from Allegiant and Frontier and fares have stopped being #1 most expensive in the country
(READ MORE: The curious case of Delta and CVG)
Southwest adding service to/from Cincinnati (CVG)
The Cincinnati metro area is the 28th largest metro area in the US, and it’s the largest metro area that was not served by Southwest Airlines.  Previously, us Cincinnati folks had to drive to either Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville or Lexington to get on Southwest.  When we used 170,000 Rapid Rewards points to fly our family of 8 out to Reno, we had to drive all the way out to Chicago to get our flight.  Every time I made the 1-2 hour drive out to the airport, I thought “Man I am wasting DAYS of my life in airports!”
The Enquirer shared the video of the CVG press conference on their Facebook page – you can watch it here
If you watch it, I think you can tell from the applause how excited people in Cincinnati are that Southwest is coming to town!
Where Southwest flies from Cincinnati
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Southwest has announced 5 daily flights from CVG to Chicago Midway (MDW) and 3 flights to Baltimore (BWI). Â The Enquirer also is reporting that Southwest service from Dayton will end in conjunction with the start of Southwest service to/from Cincinnati.
Southwest has not currently announced when service out of CVG will start, but more information should be available on Southwest.com tomorrow morning (I’ll update this post as more information comes out)
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
It’s good to have another option from CVG! We fly out of SDF mostly, but have driven to IND to get the best flights.
Yes! I’ve mostly driven to DAY but have driven to CMH or IND before
I’m glad you’re getting some choices. I’m still baffled over Lexington, though. They have an MSA of half a million. It just seems nuts that Southwest would pick that over CVG.
If you read my article about Delta and CVG – you’ll see that Delta has had a stranglehold over the CVG airport due to some deals signed back when they were trying to keep Delta here as a hub. Currently (through 2020 I believe) Delta even has the right to veto just about ANY decisions made by the airport board. It’s a wild situation
That’s great for you to have Southwest as an option. I’m in Pittsburgh and we used to be a USAirways hub, so still lots of AA flights. But Southwest is #1 here with the most flights.
I saw this news yesterday and couldn’t be more excited! Limited routes, but still… hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come. I didn’t mind driving to CMH, IND, DAY, or SDF, but this is a huge win. Suck it, Delta.
Suck it Delta indeed 🙂
Southwest has always been my favorite way to fly!!!!!
Need some NY flights!
You totally made my day with this news.