My Home Airport Is About to Become WAY Better – If You Fly Delta, This Good News Will Likely Affect You Eventually

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For some of us, our home airports aren’t the greatest.

After living in Los Angeles and Phoenix, I was spoiled with a plethora of airport and flight options.  When I moved to Salt Lake City, this wasn’t the case.  But now, Delta flyers will be much more pleased with the $3.6 billion in renovations.

Delta’s been getting a lot of attention from frequent flyers lately, especially because of their frequent award sales (some of which aren’t advertised – here’s how to uncover Delta’s hidden award sales).  So airport improvements in Delta hubs like Salt Lake City are a welcome change for all.

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Delta CEO Ed Bastian recently visited Utah to pay a visit to Capitol Hill to talk about Delta and the Salt Lake City Airport.

He started by discussing how important this airport is to Delta, stating that it’s seen “the second largest airport growth” over the last 3.5 years.  Along with this, Delta currently has a strong reign over the Salt Lake City airport, as roughly 75% of incoming & outgoing flights are through Delta and its partners.

He announced that the airport would receive a huge remodel, with phase 1 completed in fall 2020.  He even stated potential to add a non-stop route to Asia!  That’s a big deal, as the list of non-stop international routes from Salt Lake City is pretty small.

He also announced that the new Airbus a220-100 aircraft will be part of the airport’s route plans beginning May 2019, and this would enable Delta to pay for part of the airport renovation.  Along with this, the Delta SkyClub (which is the only lounge in the airport) would be renovated to triple in size to better accommodate the amount of visitors.

This is a huge sigh of relief.  As the airport stands today, it’s nowhere near capable of handling the amount of travelers it sees.  The Salt Lake City Airport is currently processing roughly 23 million travelers per year, while it is currently built to host less than half that amount.  As a frequent traveler, it’s frustrating to be inside an airport stuck in 1984 (the last time the airport had a major addition).

If you’re ever looking for things to do in Salt Lake City, check out my personalized list.

Bottom Line

It is exciting to see the constant betterment of air travel.  The days of perceiving flying as an un-luxurious and “pain in the butt” experience are quickly coming to an end.

I’d love to hear your least favorite airports in the comments!