Delta expands Salt Lake City base and adds routes from Atlanta and New York; new Northwest flights from Narita

Delta and Northwest launched myriad new routes this week, including Detroit-Shanghai, which is operated four-times weekly using a 747-400. A typically understated celebration marked the occasion.

Last July anna.aero analysed Delta’s base in Utah and showed that the airline and its partners operated around three-quarters of flights at the airport. Last year traffic at Salt Lake City airport was down 5.7% to 20.79 million with Delta handling just over eight million passengers, and its partner SkyWest handling a further 6.3 million.

10 new routes at SLC

This week saw the launch of 10 new domestic routes to nine states from Salt Lake City operated either by Delta or SkyWest. These are summarised below.

All of these new services are operated daily. The only route which is already served from Salt Lake City is Chicago Midway, which Southwest operates twice daily.

More Africa from Atlanta

From Delta’s home base in Atlanta (ATL) a new non-stop service to Johannesburg (JNB) was launched this week using a 777. A new four-times weekly service to Nairobi (NBO) in Kenya was also supposed to start but has been delayed indefinitely after the US government failed to give approval for the service, following a decision by the US Department of Homeland Security that the agency required more time to review these flights. Closer to home the airline also began daily flights from Atlanta to Lincoln (LNK) in Nebraska and Sioux Falls (FSD) in South Dakota.

More long-haul options from New York

From New York JFK (JFK) Delta has started new non-stop four-times weekly flights to Bucharest (OTP) and Valencia (VLC), as well as a one-stop (Dakar) service to Cape Town (CPT) in South Africa. Domestically Delta has added a new daily service to Asheville (AVL) in North Carolina from New York LaGuardia (LGA) airport.

Finally Delta has also added a daily service between Boston (BOS) and Charleston (CHS) in South Carolina, and a five-times weekly service from Pittsburgh (PIT) to Paris CDG (CDG).

New routes for Northwest at Narita

Northwest began three new routes from its mini-hub at Tokyo Narita (NRT) airport this week. A new daily service was started to New York JFK (JFK) using one of Delta’s 777s, while Salt Lake City (SLC) is now being served five times weekly using an A330-200. Northwest has also started a daily service to Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) in Vietnam using a 757-200. In addition Detroit (DTW) is now linked non-stop to Shanghai (PVG), four-times weekly using a 747-400.