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Delta to Offer non-stop Salt Lake to Washington D.C. Flights
Delta Air Lines is getting ready to launch its first nonstop service between Salt Lake City and Reagan National Airport in Washington.
BY STEVEN OBERBECK
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The airline, which operates its Western hub out of Salt Lake City International Airport, said Wednesday the U.S. Department of Transportation approved its application to launch the service beginning early next year.
"This flight will provide a big benefit not only to Salt Lake City but many other cities in the West that will now be only one stop away from the nation’s capital," said Robert Dibblee, Delta’s director of government affairs for the Western states.
Utah tried for a decade to get a nonstop flight into Reagan National Airport but its requests were denied several times, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said.
"Greater accessibility to our nation’s capital not only improves service for travelers from around the region, but it also aids our effort to market Salt Lake City as a world-class destination, both for tourists and businesses," he said.
With Delta’s announcement, politicians from Anderson to U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett appeared eager to link their names with the decadelong lobbying effort to land the flight.
"This is a monumental culmination of nearly 10 years’ effort to provide nonstop service to Salt Lake from Reagan National," Hatch declared Wednesday.
"Travelers in the West are the winners with this announcement," said Bennett.
Yet were it not for the recent failure of National Airlines, Utahns would still face the prospect of standing with their noses against the glass at Reagan National while waiting for Delta connecting flights to Salt Lake through Atlanta or Cincinnati.
The Las Vegas-based National, which was 48 percent owned by Harrah’s Entertainment Corp. and shuttled gamblers between Washington and the Nevada gambling capital, informed the transportation department it no longer could meet its obligations at Reagan prior to shutting down early this month.
"That opened up the opportunity for us and Salt Lake City," Dibblee said.
Once the nonstop service begins, Utahns who want to visit Washington will have a choice of flying into Virginia’s Dulles International, which is about an hour’s ride from the capital, or into the nearer Reagan National, Dibblee said.
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