WVXU News / Ann Thompson / February 1, 2021It may not be too much longer before airports around the world use self-driving vehicles to take you to your terminal, transport your luggage and clear the runway. Tests are underway now for the luggage part at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport with an autonomous tractor.[ThorDrive's](https://www.thordrive.ai/) Chris Lee points to cameras and sensors on the front of a base tractor pulling a couple of luggage carriers. This autonomous vehicle is designed to be able to avoid planes, workers and anything else that might be in its way on the tarmac. It knows when to stop.With a remote control in hand Lee says, "This is going to be the eyes for the human driver in the system and we have a computer behind in the cabin."ThorDrive has been testing this diesel vehicle for about a year and will put an electric one through the motions soon.Native Cincinnatian Eddie Shelton recently joined ThorDrive as vice president of business development. Just a month ago, the company released the proof of concept."We intend to have salable units by the end of the year. For the near future we intend to obviously extend that into a leadership position and autonomous vehicles in aviation and then also proliferate our technologies to other ground support equipment," he says.The story of how [ThorDrive ended up moving to Cincinnati](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuiv2Fb-n0U&feature=youtu.be) (after a stop in Silicon Valley) from Seoul, Korea, is an interesting one.[FULL STORY (with Video and Audio Clips) HERE](https://www.wvxu.org/post/autonomous-vehicles-making-their-debut-cvg#stream/0)

December 22, 2020As a follow up to this [partnership announcement](https://www.cvgairport.com/about/news/2020/11/19/cvg-airport-partners-with-thordrive-on-driverless-tech), ThorDrive and CVG Airport have fully developed autonomous ground equipment. The tractor featured in the video and photo below can transport passenger baggage or cargo containers. It is retrofitted with autonomous technology to safely navigate the airport environments without a driver.

WLWT-TV 5 / December 16, 2020A 17-year-old girl who is battling a chronic illness received a gift of a lifetime this week and was also able to use it to surprise her pilot during her travels to Cincinnati for treatment.Mollie Burke has been traveling back and forth between her home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Cincinnati for treatment at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.Burke has a passion for aviation and is working to get her private pilot's license. She was also recently accepted into the Aeronautical Sciences program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She has a goal of becoming a commercial pilot one day.“Throughout my life, I have learned to view things from a bigger perspective, and the very idea of literally seeing the world from a larger perspective is exciting,” Burke said. “I experience a peace in the air that is more soothing than any other place, and I find that reassuring.”Miracle Flights and Torgoen heard about Burke's inspirational story and gifted her with two pilot watches, one for herself and one to give to a Delta pilot on a future flight.When Burke landed at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Wednesday, she surprised her pilot with the watch. Burke was also able to visit the flight deck and get an up-close look at what being a pilot is all about.[FULL STORY HERE](https://www.wlwt.com/article/teen-battling-chronic-illness-surprises-pilot-with-pilot-watch-on-flight-to-cincinnati/34995593)

Cincinnati Enquirer / Briana Rice / December 17, 2020Mollie Burke has spent over two years flying back and forth between her home in Chattanooga and Cincinnati for treatment at Cincinnati Children's Hospital for severe gastroparesis.On Wednesday, the 17-year-old had a special gift to share with one of the pilots at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. And a rare chance to visit the flight deck of a commercial plan. Burke has been battling stomach issues while in and out of the hospital and traveling back and forth throughout high school. She's been pursuing her private pilot's license since August and hopes to receive it at the same time as her high school diploma. Right now she's flying small planes with an instructor, but as soon as she has her private license, Burke will fly on her own.She has recently been accepted into the Aeronautical Sciences program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with the goal to become a commercial pilot."It's been my dream for about two years now. I used to want to go into the medical field but I realized after being in the hospital for like, most of my childhood basically, I didn't want to be in a hospital for the rest of my life," Burke said. "Flying back and forth from Cincinnati so much, I really just fell in love with aviation and decided that is what I wanted to be."Burke was born at 31 weeks so she's had life-long gastroparesis issues. Over the years, she's had multiple surgeries and has flown to Cincinnati Children's 18 times."We exhausted every resource in Tennessee," said Andi Shadrick, Burke's mom. So the two began traveling to Cincinnati for treatment through a nonprofit called Miracle Flights, which paid for the flights to Cincinnati."She was throwing up and vomiting roughly 20 to 30 times a day," Shadrick said. Burke was unable to attend her sophomore year and half of junior year. Burke was the first person at Cincinnati Children's hospital to receive a new a gastric stimulator that has greatly improved her well-being, Shadrick said. The surgery was delayed until July because of COVID-19. "She basically has a pacemaker in her stomach and it's pretty effective right now."Life is looking pretty good for Burke, Shadrick said. She'll graduate from high school in May at the top of her class at Red Bank High School in Chattanooga, was recently accepted into her dream college and lately she's been feeling a lot better.Without Miracle Flights, Burke might not be doing so well. She couldn't make the five-hour drive to Cincinnati with how often she was vomiting. The company provides an average of 600 flights monthly to families who need assistance to reach life-changing medical care.Miracle Flights and its partner Torgoen on Wednesday gifted Burke with a pilot watch to give to an unsuspecting pilot during one of her future flights."Without Miracle Flight flying her, she would have never fallen in love with flying, she would have never wanted to be a pilot and the watch company would have never given her the watch," Shadrick said. "It's kind of like a big wheel of everyone involved to make yesterday happen."Burke joined Delta pilot Capt. Jim Leveille in the flight deck and gave him the watch on Wednesday. [FULL STORY HERE](https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/12/17/chattanooga-cincinnati-airports-flights-teen-cvg/3939148001/)

CVG Staff and Delta News Hub / December 16, 2020Meet Mollie: Mollie is a 17-year old student who has traveled back and forth between her home in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for treatment over the last 27 months.Mollie has a passion for aviation and is currently pursuing her private pilot’s license. She has recently been accepted into the Aeronautical Sciences program at [Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University](https://erau.edu/) with the goal to become a commercial pilot.“Throughout my life, I have learned to view things from a bigger perspective, and the very idea of literally seeing the world from a larger perspective is exciting,” says Mollie. “I experience a peace in the air that is more soothing than any other place, and I find that reassuring.”Impressed and inspired by Mollie’s story of perseverance through adversity, [Miracle Flights](https://miracleflights.org/) and their partner [Torgoen](https://torgoen.com/) gifted her with a pilot watch to give to an unsuspecting pilot of one of her future flights.On Wednesday, Delta pilot Captain Jim Leveille was greeted after landing at [Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport](https://cvgairport.com/) with this surprise by Mollie, creating a special moment for each of them. Mollie also was able to visit the flight deck and experience a glimpse of her dream of being a pilot.“It’s an honor to play a small part in Mollie’s story and to receive such a special gift from a promising future pilot,” says Captain Leveille. “Despite the challenges we have seen in 2020, Mollie’s story is reminder of why travel remains essential, even during a pandemic.”“Thank you to everyone involved in helping make this happen today,” says Andi, Mollie’s mom. “It was important to us to let these pilots and other flight crew know how special they are to us and so many others who they transport each and every day.”

Intelligent CIO / Mark Bowen / November 10, 2020_With the aviation industry being one of the sectors most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Brian Cobb, Chief Innovation Officer at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and one of the speakers at [Cybersecurity in Aviation](https://www.cybersec.aero/), exclusively tells us how the industry is utilizing technology to put itself back on the road to recovery._How important is the use of data to the aviation industry’s fight back against COVID-19?Using the expression, ‘Cash is King’, then I contend like others, ‘Data is Gold’. We collectively have vast amounts of unmined data at our fingertips while generating more billions of bits of data each and every day. Refined data through Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning across multiple industries and generating predictive analytics from the same will continue to accelerate the pace by which we do business.Industries and businesses who embrace data mining will learn to adapt to market cycle indicators and amply be prepared to moderate dramatic events. COVID-19 is an ideal case study.While the transportation industry understood that a pandemic was feasible, it is fair to say that the vast majority of my global colleagues never thought it would happen in our lifetime. But here we are. While many around the world are focused on the ‘silver bullet solution’, others are looking to what we can learn today to prevent similar spread in the future.Imagine public venues such as malls, arenas, ports, etc. using networked solutions looking for symptomatic concerns without fear of personally identifiable biometrics. If a community trends towards risk level, could public health officials work with transportation to effectively restrict travel beyond regional limits?Cities and countries are doing this today, but it’s on a macro-level and oftentimes well beyond the beginning of the upward trend. Some number of citizens have likely traveled by the time lockdowns are in effect.Stopping the spread is too late. Imagine if this ‘networked approach’ were in place enabling public health and transport officials to affect lockdowns based on micro-level data and predictive analytics.Perhaps we could have contained an epidemic before blossoming to the global pandemic we are experiencing today. Also imagine the narrative if such an approach were effective in stopping the spread and restoring economic stability. That’s an effective use of data, prediction modeling, Deep Learning, and demonstrable action to protect the industry and others like it going forward. The thermographic gateway system you use from Fazing Labs allows you to use a real-time system of dashboard where you can monitor real-time for alerts. What data are these alerts supplying you with and how do you use it?It’s important that we first acknowledge that detecting an abnormal core temperature is not indicative of COVID-19 as some do not exhibit an abnormally high temperature while others may have a higher core temperature beyond their control (e.g. medication side effect).That said, we recognize that core temperature monitoring may provide insights to the community concern trending mentioned above. With Fazing Labs, we’re modeling the ability to protect the identification of the ‘target’ until such time that a reading is abnormal.Should that occur, our intention is to use our regular CCTV capabilities to identify the individual and approach them in a respectful way. This is opposite of how airports perform security screening today where 100% of the population is processed as being a security risk until cleared.Ideally, this approach to temperature checks provides a more humanistic, considerate and timely approach to not interrupting the flow or worse, inadvertently create queues that compromise social distancing.In consideration that temperature is not a confirmation of COVID-19, the reasonable expectation would be for that guest to be escorted to a secondary screening using an approved rapid test method.As the primary (temperature) and secondary (rapid test) data points are gathered, this would be mapped against the total population traveling over the same time. The result is a trend report that ideally can assist public health agencies and transportation officials discern models of concern and determination of allowing mass travel or implement moderate restrictions to stem or stop the spread. Can you use this data for contact tracing at a later date? If so, how does this process work?We have other systems in place that support contract tracing should that become a requirement. This is done through sensor technology currently at our security checkpoint with the intent of deploying sensors from roadway to gateway (boarding gate).The sensor tech provides capture of mac addresses for any Bluetooth or Wi-Fi enabled device. While we don’t know who the individual is that’s carrying the device, we do know that that device travelled throughout our facilities and path that individual took while on-premise.Our leap to leverage this data for the greater good is to provide this to independent and approved contract trace organizations (e.g. Apple, Google or similar) in the interest of data privacy concerns.Should the individual confirm via their contract trace app, our data would enable cross comparison of their device mac address(es) against all other devices that traversed our facility over a particular period of time.It’s important to note that the CDC has recently changed its position about how long two or more individuals need to be in close proximity to be deemed ‘in contact’. However, we also are seeing study results that suggest the SARS CoV strain can survive on some surfaces for days, possibly weeks.If this is accurate, then we have a responsibility to be looking beyond just individuals in close proximity to a wider audience of those that may have followed the same path, touched the same surfaces or used the same amenities. There are tremendous implications to effective cleaning and sterilization and taking adequate precautions on behalf of the entire traveling population. While that may seem daunting, it is perhaps an equal justification for why community networked solutions could and should play a larger part than what’s occurring today.How has the data allowed you to contain the spread of disease while creating a less negative economic impact?We can only speculate at this point given the ever-changing conditions by our global public health organizations. I do think it’s fair to suggest that we’ve used data effectively in our decision making.One of our best use cases are the IoT (Internet of things) sensors that we placed in all of our public restrooms pre-Covid. The sensor deployment was purpose driven for better staff efficiency while providing a greater, positive impact of exceptionally clean restrooms for our customers.Our sensors have predetermined thresholds established and actively count the number of visits in and out of each female and male restroom. As the threshold nears for a particular restroom, our nearest male or female housekeeper depending on the room type is alerted that the restroom needs servicing.This is done through cloud-based computing and notifications sent to a wearable device (wrist watch) that each housekeeper is issued. We’ve moved well beyond the traditional ‘pen and paper note card’ of when the restroom was last serviced. Our guests are less interested in seeing someone’s initials on a piece of paper and are far more expectant of superior cleanliness. Add the COVID-19 concerns of today and our customer expectations have likely increased exponentially.As COVID-19 began to impact our airport passenger activity, we immediately used data from the IoT restroom devices to determine which restrooms to close temporarily or for an extended period of time.This allowed for the best, most efficient use of staff’s time vs. attempting intensive cleaning throughout all restrooms. It gave them a fighting chance to keep up with the newer expectations.Pre-Covid, closing restrooms would have been unheard of. However, with effective signage and customer guidance, our traveling guests had a greater appreciation for why we were actively closing/opening restrooms in the interest of quality, health and safety. It’s gestures like these that will support optics and confidence building for the public to return to air travel, demonstrating in real time that aviation is acting on the health and welfare of our guests at all times going forward.[Full article here](https://www.intelligentcio.com/north-america/2020/11/10/technology-to-the-rescue-how-the-aviation-sector-is-fighting-back-against-covid-19/)

APEX - The Airline Passenger Experience Association / Valerie Silva / November 13, 2020Since 2011, Candace McGraw has been the CEO of CVG, where she has led a team that reversed nine consecutive years of passenger decline, turning the US airport into one of the fastest-growing in the country for both passenger and cargo traffic. Candace also serves as treasurer of the ACI World Governing Board and immediate past chair of Airports Council International–North America, and has been appointed to two federal advisory panels: NextGen Advisory Committee and Women in Aviation Advisory Board.FAST FACTSYears in the industry: 25 Frequent flight: CVG–DCA Brand of suitcase: Tumi Seatback or PED? PED Passport stamp you wish you had: RussiaYou’ve been CEO of CVG since 2011. What has been your biggest achievement in that time? CVG had experienced nine consecutive years of passenger decline until we were able to reverse that trend in 2013. Once we were able to attract additional passenger carriers and diversify our business by focusing on cargo and land development, we were able to turn CVG into one of the fastest-growing airports in the US for both passenger and cargo traffic.You were once an attorney. What’s something you learned in law school that continues to inform your work today?  I am still a licensed attorney but haven’t practiced for a number of years. I keep my license, just in case. Law school hones your analytical skills, teaches you to appreciate and understand all sides of an argument and requires you to develop concise and clear arguments to support your position. All of which are important when juggling the interests of various airport stakeholders. One of my first-year professors taught us that clients are not paying you to know black-letter law – they are paying you for your judgment. The industry seemingly changed overnight with the spread of COVID-19. How did your job change in kind? Pre-COVID-19, I spent the predominant amount of my day focused on planning for the future. We were considering some interesting domestic and international opportunities. With the pandemic, we had to immediately triage the situation, handle the potential health and safety concerns, adjust our budget and focus on day-to-day operations. I think we have now struck the right balance of handling the immediate issues while not losing sight of future opportunities for success.Airlines have responded to the pandemic by canceling routes and grounding aircraft. What are airports like yours, whose costs are much more fixed, doing to ensure the economic survival of their business? CVG has seen a number of ups and downs over the years. As a former hub airport, we recognized years ago that we needed to diversify our business in an attempt to become more “recession-proof.” We made certain to attract passenger carriers, focused on additional cargo expansion and embarked on non-aeronautical land development, making sure that our land-development program also supported retail, commercial and industrial uses. We were very cognizant to not have all of our eggs in one basket. With passenger service being hampered by the pandemic, we are fortunate to have ongoing cargo and land-rental revenues. Additionally, like all other airports, we have also cut our operating budget, frozen all hiring and deferred all non-essential capital projects.What role has social media played in connecting with customers at a time when few are traveling?  Social media has been a critical communications tool as it has allowed us to educate, build confidence and engage with customers. Our communications and customer experience teams recently partnered to go above and beyond for a passenger. They took to social media to find the owner of a stuffed animal that was left behind in our facilities. Our customers were asked to help in the online search and share this feel-good story. They were able to follow along as the stuffed animal enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of the airport and ultimately flew home to its owner, the six-year-old boy who had received the toy as an adoption present. There were smiles all around! As a residual benefit, we gained thousands of new and engaged followers, millions of impressions and an enormous amount of earned media exposure.How important is cargo to CVG now, and what trends in this domain are you seeing? Cargo is tremendously important to the success of CVG. As home to DHL’s global superhub for the Americas and the future hub for Amazon Prime Air, we are currently ranked as the seventh-largest cargo hub in North America. As both hubs continue to grow, I anticipate that our ranking will continue to increase. Pre-pandemic, cargo was approximately 60 percent of our landed weight. In the midst of the pandemic, cargo is about 85 percent of our landed weight. We are very thankful for the business. The cargo carriers are literally helping us keep our lights on! As cargo growth increases, there have also been a number of related businesses moving to our region. Those businesses are either suppliers to the carriers or companies that need to quickly get their products to market.Does CVG remain on target with its Amazon Prime Air hub? Construction remains on target for completion, with Phase 1 anticipated to be operational for the 2021 holiday season. The hub comprises two large parcels: the southern parcel of 650 acres and a northern parcel of 440 acres. The southern parcel has been cleared, and construction work on the initial phase of the sort facility and ramp is ongoing. After the first phase is operational, Amazon is anticipating to complete development of the entire southern parcel. It may take another four to five years for completion. However, I can watch the construction from my office window – and I have never seen a project move so quickly.  Where do you hope to see CVG in 2030?  In 2030, CVG will be recognized as a catalyst that positively transforms our region and the broader aviation industry. It will continue to be forward-leaning and resilient. However, by that time, I anticipate I will be retired and cheering on Team CVG from the sidelines.How CVG is Keeping up with the PandemicBoosting Protocols on the Ground CVG has doubled the number of hand-sanitizer stations, installed plexiglass guards at ticket counters and gate holds and is regularly wiping down high-touchpoint areas and using autonomous floor-cleaning technology. “The airport has placed friendly reminders throughout our facilities for travelers to wear face masks, physically distance and travel only when feeling well,” McGraw says.Launching “Fly Healthy” Online On this new section of the airport’s website, travelers can watch video demonstrations of the enhanced cleaning procedures; read updates related to parking, security and concessions; and access links to important resources, such as airline and state-level guidance, allowing them to educate themselves about any restrictions applicable to their trip. “We created the Fly Healthy section on our website to allow travelers to research and plan their trip to feel comfortable and confident before leaving home,” McGraw says.Embracing New Technologies In early 2020, prior to the pandemic, CVG launched Avidbots’ autonomous cleaning robot, Neo, which McGraw says has become a valuable resource that is now deployed three to four times per day. It is also testing a thermographic gateway screener, from Fazing Labs, that uses infrared capabilities and artificial intelligence to obtain data and plan for future scenarios. “Over the last several years, CVG has leaned heavily into technology to enhance the customer experience,” McGraw says. “But the pandemic is heightening the adoption of additional solutions.” _This article was originally published in the 10.4 November/December issue of_ [APEX Experience](https://apex.aero/magazines/november-december-2020/) _magazine._[Full story here](https://apex.aero/articles/2020-11-17-c-suite-cincinnati-northern-kentucky-international-airport-ceo-candace-mcgraw/)