Another week, another new flight.

In what's becoming something of a regular occurrence, Blue Grass Airport and Northwest Airlines announced yesterday new service to Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning June 6. It was the airport's sixth new destination announcement in four months.

Just last week, the airport landed Florida routes to Tampa and Fort Lauderdale and an additional flight to Orlando. Each begins in June. Last month, American Airlines said it will compete in the Bluegrass with American Eagle flights to Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth.

"It seems a little strange to have so many flights announced in a short time, but all of these flights we have been working on for years," airport spokesman Tom Tyra said. "Sometimes it is just a matter of getting the ball rolling downhill and it picks up momentum."

Competition doesn't hurt, either.

Analysts say Central Kentucky is benefiting from a much broader trend of struggling, legacy airlines shifting flights away from cities with discount carriers and cutthroat price competition to traditionally underserved airports with higher air fares.

The airlines "love you," said Tom Parsons, a Texas-based travel expert who publishes Bestfares.com. "You are their meal ticket. You make them money. ... You're a profit center as long as the air fares stay high."

Just five years ago, Lexington travelers could fly directly to only seven cities. This summer that total will expand to 16, the most in the airport's history.

The Minneapolis flight will be on 50-seat regional jets operated by Pinnacle Airlines Corp., a Northwest regional carrier.

Airport officials say the flights create connections to the West Coast, Canada and Asia. About 128 people a day fly from Lexington to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Blue Grass' top two markets. Fliers must transfer at other airports to reach both destinations.

But Northwest also expects to sell seats to business fliers who are traveling only to Minnesota.

A little more than 25 passengers a day fly from Bluegrass to the Twin Cities, enough to fill half the Canadair jet alone, according to federal transportation data. Officials attribute the traffic to local business and the biotechnology and medical industries.

"The local market between Lexington and Minneapolis is quite large," said Tom Bach, Northwest's vice president for market planning and Airlink.

Whether Northwest Airlines, the No. 2 Lexington carrier based on market share, is trying to protect its turf remains unclear. Private analysts and airport officials both wondered if American's flights to Dallas and Chicago -- which will also capture traffic to the west and Japan -- sped up Northwest's timetable for expansion.

"I think it has tons to do with it," Parsons said.

But Northwest said it is not responding to any competitors in Lexington. Bach doesn't see American's arrival as cutting into international traffic, which Northwest leads in market share.

He said fares "will be very, very similar" to those out of Louisville, which were selling as low as $193 round trip for two-week advance tickets to Minneapolis yesterday.

With the slew of new flights in June, Blue Grass will have 18.7 percent more departing seats for sale than in December. Officials boasted that the 20 additional flights and 437 extra seats will give travelers more choices and keep prices in check.

The airport will have 100 flights in and out, and 2,927 outbound seats this summer.

Such choice is the positive tradeoff of not having a discount carrier such as Southwest Airlines, Tyra said. The drawback is higher prices.

But fares in Lexington, like those across the nation, are in a downward spiral. Airport officials say prices are close enough with their rivals in Louisville and Cincinnati to keep passengers.

In 1999, the airport's average one-way fare was $173.23 not including taxes and fees, which can add more than $40. By 2004 it had fallen to $148.65 -- still more than Louisville International Airport at $138.72, but substantially less than five years earlier, according to a federal Department of Transportation pricing survey.

"For a community our size to serve 16 gateway airports provides unprecedented choice for the customer," executive director Mike Gobb said. "We are seeing similar fares to the airports who have low-fare operators, but we are doing it all through competition. We are getting the high quality, legacy carrier service at prices that are competitive with any low-fare carrier market."