Delta Air Lines is preparing to launch its first scheduled transpacific flight from its growing hub in Salt Lake City (SLC), with Seoul Incheon (ICN) as the chosen destination.
Delta Air Lines Plans Salt Lake City – Seoul Flight, First Transpacific Service From SLC
While American and United have joint venture partners in Japan that funnel much of East Asia traffic through Tokyo, Delta’s strongest transpacific partner is Seoul-based Korean Airlines. As a result, Delta funnels more flights via Seoul, offering nonstop service from:
- Atlanta (ATL)
- Detroit (DTW)
- Minneapolis (MSP)
- Seattle (SEA)
Via JonNYC, Salt Lake City will become the latest city to offer nonstop service to the South Korean capital:
DL: pic.twitter.com/tUeKCyCI07
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) September 24, 2024
That’s all we have at this point, so no info yet on start date, frequency, or aircraft type (though I’d guess it will start in the spring, operate daily, and utilize an A330-900neo aircraft).
Delta has operated transpacific charter flights for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) to Asia, but this would mark the first scheduled service. In the other direction, Delta serves Amsterdam (AMS), London (LHR), and Paris (CDG) from SLC.
Salt Lake City – Growing Hub
Delta has labeled Salt Lake City as its fastest-growing “core” hub. Delta is in the midst of a multi-year transformation of its terminal real estate in SLC and plans continued growth, including a 7% growth in 2025 (versus 2024).
Currently, SLC is more of a domestic connecting hub (like Denver for United) but the launch of more international marks an exciting next chapter for Detla at SLC.
CONCLUSION
Delta is adding new service between Salt Lake City and Seoul in 2025, its first transpacific route from its fastest-growing hub. The route has not been formally announced but is all but a given considering the leaked slide deck above.
image: Steven Byles / Flickr
This is so funny lol. Can’t believe we lost PXD-HND for this
Miami has not service to East Asia, but Salt Lake City does. That makes sense to me.
Because geography. Miami is a very, very, very long way from East Asia. Even ATL only has a few East Asia flights and those are already in the ultra-long-haul range. MIA would add a couple more hours past that. Especially after accounting for avoiding Russian airspace, SLC is about 2,000 miles closer to East Asia than MIA is.
“Currently, Delta is more of a domestic connecting hub (like Denver for United)”
SLC, not Delta.
Correct.
Delta operated scheduled service to Narita from SLC. This is not the first transpacific flight from SLC.
This makes perfect sense for Delta. Both Delta and Korean Air are Sky team partners and Delta has been focusing on building a strong US route network to Seoul. Obviously, Korean Air has a very strong route network throughout Asia, so having Delta feed traffic through ICN should be beneficial for both carriers.
My spidey senses are telling me they are going to try to tie this new service to US approval of the Korean-Asiana merger to try to make that into an issue that has some domestic support.
DL flew SLC to Tokyo previously. This new route to ICN isn’t the first TPAC out of SLC. Hard to understand why SLC-ICN elicits so much excitement. It’s a hub to hub route, for an airline with a weak (though not as weak as AA) TPAC portfolio, and feeds into connections.