Northwest is a good partner for Delta and the best merger partner for SLC. Salt Lake is by far the westernmost hub and doesn't have another one competing (the same cannot be said for Minneapolis, Detroit; Memphis, Cincinnati, Atlanta).

Could more international flights be in the making?

There will be no layoffs as result of the merger. As the result of fuel prices and the economy however, there will be plenty to make up for that.

For the next couple of weeks!

does no lay-offs at the airport mean that the Delta call center will remain open and its reservations agents remain employed?

Now that the city has absolute certainty that SLC will remain a hub, isn't it time to build a new facility? I fly 4 or more times a week, from one coast to the other coast, and there isn't a hub with the pathetic 1970s type facility that SLC represents. Even non-hub mid-sized airports such as in Nashville, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Orlando, Seattle , etc., you find new terminals, great shops and restaurants, Don't even try and compare Salt Lake City with western hub cities Denver, San Francisco, Phoenix. It's way past time to add light rail to the airport, and it's way past time to smash this horrible mishmash and build something the city and state will be proud of.

To SJ Bobkins,
I believe we all realize that SLC plans to rebuild the SLC terminal. It would not have been prudent to do this while Delta was still in Chapter 11 or while the merger partner could have been UAL.