ATLANTA — Cincinnati may be currently known in the aviation world for short hops to cities such as Kalamazoo, Mich., but that may change over the next two years.

        Delta Air Lines, which operates its second largest hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, and its international partners say that Cincinnati is the next logical choice when it comes to adding international service.

FLIGHTS

Here are the current international nonstop destinations offered from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Delta Air Lines' second-largest hub:     Paris (one daily flight on Delta and one daily flight on Air France; each airline sells seats on the other's flight)     Rome (one daily flight on Delta; service ends today; Alitalia also sold seats on that flight)     Cancun, Mexico (one daily flight on Delta; Aeromexico also sells seats on that flight)     Frankfurt, Germany (one daily flight on Delta)     London-Gatwick (one daily flight on Delta)     Montreal (four daily flights on Comair)     Nassau, Bahamas (two daily flights on Comair)     Toronto (nine daily flights on Comair)     Delta also offers a flight to Milan from Cincinnati, but that plane makes a stop at New York's JFK airport.     Source: Delta Air Lines

        And while they caution that such service is not in the immediate future, they say they are seriously studying flights between Cincinnati and cities such as Mexico City, Rome, Milan and even Seoul, South Korea.

        That could mean a massive expansion of international service by 2004 if the airline industry can recover from its current slump, brought on by both the continuing repercussions from the Sept. 11 attacks and the sluggish economy.

        “Cincinnati has proven that hub-to-hub flights between major cities work already,” said Subodh Karnik, Delta's senior vice president for network and revenue, at a conference of airline officials, reporters and analysts earlier this month. “The Paris flight works; the (London) Gatwick flight works; and the Frankfurt flight works. So the extension logically with everything that is going on is that an extension of that could occur.

        “Everything that has gone into Cincinnati by way of international flights has always pleasantly surprised us and have worked more than they have not, and we would like that to continue.”

        Delta currently serves seven international destinations nonstop out of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, including two in Canada and Nassau, Bahamas, although the Rome route ends today.

        By comparison, Delta offers 44 international destinations out of its main hub in Atlanta.

        Experts say Cincinnati could be poised to make up that gap.

        “It's not a huge market by itself, but has enough to make it worth a look,” said Dan Gibbs, a Silver Spring, Md.-based airport consultant with Kiehl Hendrickson Group. “Couple that with the connecting traffic, the new stress on international traffic over both coasts by Delta because of SkyTeam, and it makes Cincinnati a natural place to expand international service.”

        Delta and its SkyTeam partners are ramping up their alliance — thanks to antitrust immunity granted by federal regulators last summer — with a major emphasis on connecting their various hubs.

        This process has already begun in Cincinnati between Delta and Air France. The U.S. carrier, the nation's third largest, launched a flight to Paris in 1990, on which Air France sold seats after becoming a partner with Delta in late 1999.

        That helped build demand to the point where Air France started its own flight between here and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris — the French carrier's main hub — in May 2000.

        And the importance of the hub feed was shown last year when Air France suspended its flight in July 2001, blaming a drop of connecting passengers caused by the three-month Comair pilot strike.

        But Air France brought that flight back in April, and while officials with neither Air France nor Delta would share specifics as to how the two flights are performing, they say they are pleased with the current results.

        “We've got exploding traffic on that route,” said Pierre-Henri Georgeon, Air France's president and chief operating officer. “And now that the power of the hub has returned to full strength after the strike last year, I would expect to see the same kinds of results that we get in Atlanta.”

        Airport aviation director Bob Holscher says that international flights have always worked in Cincinnati, pointing out that a flight to Brussels, Belgium by Sabena was that airline's most successful U.S. flight at the time.

        “It's not a pipe dream to think we could become a sizable international hub here,” Mr. Holscher said. “We wouldn't be able to go it alone and need that hub feed. But from all indications, that is only going to get stronger with Comair continuing to grow.”

        There are other efforts under way to expand international service. Beginning

        July 1, Delta operated a direct flight to Rome, sharing seats with SkyTeam partner Alitalia. But that was a summer season flight only.

        Still “it absolutely met our expectations and was profitable,” says Mr. Karnik, who declined to share specifics. “It was an experiment that worked. But will that experiment turn into a permanent fixture? I'm not going to speculate on that, especially with the uncertainty around all capacity right now. But again, everything we've tried in Cincinnati on an international basis has worked.”

        Delta also offers a direct flight to Cancun, Mexico, sharing seats with SkyTeam partner Aeromexico, although Mr. Holscher says there is great Cincinnati demand for a direct flight to Mexico City.

        “We've been working with the numbers and our consultants for 7-8 years to get that flight,” Mr. Holscher said.

        Airport consultant Mr. Gibbs, who works with the local airport, says such a direct flight would attract 15,000 passengers a year just from the local market, not counting connecting traffic from the hub.

        “That's enough to me to justify a flight,” Mr. Gibbs said.

        Mr. Karnik said adding any new flight now was “a risky proposition.” But he did acknowledge that Delta is “continually evaluating” a Mexico City-Cincinnati route, which has been on Delta's radar screen for awhile because of its potential to draw traffic. Mr. Karnik declined to elaborate.

        Aeromexico's director for alliance analysis, Nicolas Rhodes, said his airline is continuing to study Cincinnati as a potential market but that in all likelihood it would wait for Delta to start service between the two cities first.

        “Cincinnati is always in our plans,” Mr. Rhodes said. “But we're not in any position to start a new route, as much as we would like to.”

        New international service may not be limited to Asia, Europe or Latin America. The airport is

        building a 2,000-foot extension to the current 10,000-foot east-west runway, which would make it long enough to handle fully loaded transpacific flights.

        Mr. Holscher said he would love to see Delta launch a direct flight to Tokyo, or elsewhere in Japan, which would seem to be a natural given the major presence of Japanese automaker Toyota in Northern Kentucky.

        But he acknowledged that the antitrust immunity between Delta and Korea Air makes it more likely for a route to be created between Cincinnati and Seoul, one of Asia's biggest airline hubs.

        “We're continually working with the airlines, showing them numbers about the viability of certain flights,” Mr. Holscher said. “Hopefully we can take the next step.”

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