All airlines but Delta still mum on route

Unlike Delta Air Lines, other air carriers at Salt Lake City International Airport are mum about the Federal Aviation Administration's proposal to redesign the city's airspace.

The redesign, dubbed the Northern Utah Airspace Initiative, has become controversial and political as Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, Mayor Rocky Anderson, City Council members, environmental groups, Delta and others have opposed the plan.

But the airport's other major airlines — including American, Northwest, United, Southwest, JetBlue and America West — are keeping quiet.

"We have no position on that initiative," said American Airlines spokesman John Hotard, repeating a familiar sentiment that major carriers in Salt Lake City told the Deseret Morning News this week.

While many carriers said their airlines have no plans to comment, Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said her company "was still evaluating the situation" and could make comment at some point.

Many airlines said they were keeping quiet because they operate so few flights out of Salt Lake City, compared to Delta, which runs 76 percent of the airport's traffic, either directly or though its carriers like SkyWest, Comair and Atlantic Southeast.

At the urging of the city's Airport Authority Board Delta came out against the plan last month, saying it was unneeded.

While the FAA maintains the plan is needed, in light of the mounting opposition, Clark Desing, air traffic manager at Salt Lake City International, said it might be time for the FAA to pull the plug.

"The decision has not been made yet to (pull the plug), but it is certainly something (the FAA) will have to consider," Desing said. "If the major user of the airport does not want it and will accept the delays, then the FAA will have to consider (pulling the plug)."

The plan is controversial because one of its potential solutions would be to place an additional "downwind" — a flight pattern commercial jets use before beginning their final approach to the airport — over Salt Lake County's most populated areas, its eastern benches.

Along this eastern downwind, jets would likely travel about 7,000 to 8,000 feet above the valley floor, Desing said. By way of comparison, when jets now cross 4500 South on approach to Salt Lake City International, they are 2,000 to 2,500 feet above ground.