Delta to increase daily flights from Salt Lake

Delta Air Lines Inc. is adding more than a dozen daily flights from the Salt Lake City International Airport, including ones to eight new cities, the Atlanta-based airline said Thursday.

Bob Cortelyou, Delta's senior vice president of network planning, said the flights were added because of the merger of Delta and Northwest Airlines Inc. Delta's U.S. hubs are in Salt Lake, Cincinnati, Atlanta and New York City. Northwest's U.S. hubs are in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis.

"The addition of new nonstop flights and added frequencies from Delta's Salt Lake hub means thousands of airline customers will have faster options for connecting across the Mountain West to points around the world, all powered by the benefits of the Delta-Northwest merger," Cortelyou said in a prepared statement.

The flights will be timed for international connections from Salt Lake City International to Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport and Tokyo-Narita International Airport. Delta began direct flights to Paris from Salt Lake this past June. Service between Salt Lake City and Tokyo begins this coming June 3 and will be five times a week.

Beginning June 4, Delta will have two flights daily to Milwaukee, Wis., one daily flight to Nashville, Tenn., one to Indianapolis and two to Bismarck, N.D.

Delta will also resume daily flights to El Paso, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Sioux Falls, S.D. Delta used to have flights between the cities and Salt Lake City, but had dropped them within the last couple of years to save money.

Between May and June, the new schedule will add a flight between Salt Lake city and nine other cities that are currently connected to Utah by Delta: Baltimore; Spokane, Wash.; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; St. Louis, Mo.; Memphis, Tenn., and Los Angeles. Delta will add two daily flights to Seattle.

Delta and Northwest this past April announced their $17 billion merger. The airline will be called Delta, the headquarters will be in Atlanta and the new company will be headed by Delta's Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson.

The Department of Justice approved the merger in October and Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Thursday that the company is expecting a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration by the end of 2009.

On Jan. 29, Delta closed the Northwest ticket office at the Salt Lake airport and moved it to Terminal 2, which Delta occupies.

Delta also "moved all the (Northwest) flights from the gates they were on over to Terminal 2 or Concourse C," Black said, referring to the concourse at the airport that Delta uses.

E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com