I realised while writing this that I have no idea where Cincinnati is on a map. I could not point to it. But I feel like I know it so well because I have heard it so many times in films. It is one cool sounding place. Cinema often renames airports to something that is memorable for the audience, but when there is one named after the city of Cincinnati, the producers of Rain Man didn’t need to do a thing.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport
The airport was used for a scene in the 1988 film Rain Man. It tells the story of Tom Cruise’s character, Charlie, discovering he has an autistic brother, Raymond, played by Dustin Hoffman, who has just inherited his late father’s estate. They travel across America, so Charlie can legally adopt Raymond to gain control of his money. The film would go on to win four academy awards, including best picture.
A large amount of the film was filmed in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area to build the film community in the area. Therefore, the airport scenes were filmed on location, with no Hollywood trickery of disguising a different airport.
The airport hosts a very famous scene in the film. They reach the airport in the hope to fly across the country, only Raymond is afraid to fly, a fact only discovered once they reach the airport.
He refuses to fly on an airline that has ever crashed before, citing the crashes of American Airlines Flight 625, Delta Airline Flight 191 and Continental Airlines Flight 1713 as his reasons.
However, Raymond is happy to fly with Qantas, stating repeatedly “Qantas never crashed”. Unfortunately, the Australia based airline couldn’t help with this American-based journey.
If you have watched the film but can’t remember this scene, then there is a chance you saw it on a flight, as 15 airlines aired an edited version of the film, in fear that so much attention on plane crashes would dishearten passengers. The filmmakers were very unhappy that such a vital piece of the story was removed. However, Qantas was more than happy to show the original version.
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport also featured in the 1993 film ‘Airborne’.
About Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport
The airport is used for both passenger and cargo flights. It offers nonstop service to 50 airports across America and Europe, with Delta Airlines and Allegiant Airlines operating from the airport. Additionally, it is a huge hub for Amazon, which began a $1.49 billion expansion in 2017. Amazon plans to have 200 flights leave this airport every day once expansion is completed.
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