Writer: Joshua Andino
2 min read July 2023 — Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport aims to attract millions in capital investment through its diversification and expansion strategy.
The 14th largest cargo airport in the world has sought to expand and diversify its business lines in an attempt to attract over $100 million in capital investment and cement its position as one of the region’s key economic drivers. A year ago, the airport celebrated the arrival of international cargo carrier Silk Way West Airlines. Today, the airport is leveraging the land it owns and sits on to help spur further development, allowing both passenger and cargo airlines to repair, maintain, and enhance their aircraft.
“We’re blessed to have all of this land. We have to figure out how to use it in a way to keep us healthy and growing,” said CEO of the airport Candace McGraw to the Cincinnati Business Courier. According to McGraw, investments, “can go well beyond our campus. The whole corridor should be filled with people who manufacture things relative to aerospace or those companies who want to put their goods on a plane and get it anywhere in the world. We have to dream and dream big.”
The strategy is outlined in accordance with the airport’s strategic plan, “CVG New Heights,” which identifies a need to redefine what the airport can provide through partnerships and ventures, including establishing new businesses to commercialize non-aeronautical revenue with the aim of “building an aviation ecosystem that creates bigger, bolder opportunities for everyone in the region…CVG will be the hub for it all.”
Planned CVG expansions include Hangar Row, on 350 acres of undeveloped land toward the airport’s southwest. McGraw and her team are aiming to develop the area to provide room for businesses dedicated to maintaining, servicing and upgrading aircraft. “Airplanes need to fly, and they need to be maintained. That’s everything we want to build on campus here at CVG,” McGraw said. If the airport is successful, it could open up opportunities for future passenger airlines to consider the airport a viable option for connecting flights or as a base of operation.
The second initiative the airport is working on is its North Cargo plan, which aims to construct six new buildings – three forwarding and three freighter facilities for up to 20 aircraft to pick up waiting cargo. A warehouse facility, built on the site of a now out-dated rental car lot, would provide CVG with the opportunity to pick up additional cargo businesses that, as it stands, is primarily sent to other major airports – such as Chicago O’Hare, via truck.
Rich Elwell, CVG’s director of commercial management said, “People are pleasantly surprised at what we have to offer. We have capacity a lot of airports would dream to have. We’ve got way more to offer than you know.”
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