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Ray Keddington, who should be wearing a red coat because he is one of Delta Air Lines' super Red Coat passenger service agents, assists Aymeric Choucroun with his connection from Paris to Bozeman, Mont., at Salt Lake City International Airport's international terminal Thursday. The Red Coat service was rolled out Thursday, but the red coats had not arrived.

At a time when most airlines are cutting frills to stay in the black, Delta Air Lines is taking a step toward the past.

On Thursday, the carrier brought back to Salt Lake City International Airport its popular Red Coat customer service program after a four-year absence because of Delta's bankruptcy in 2005.

"We realize that we've got customers who enjoy that one-on-one customer touch," Carol Zupancic, Delta's managing director of airport customer service, said.

But they may be hard to spot for a few weeks.

Spokeswoman Chris Kelly said Delta has just ordered coats for its local agents and they haven't all arrived. In the meantime, the Red Coats are wearing buttons that say "service from the heart."

Red Coats are a kind of super-troubleshooter with reputations inside Delta for providing exceptional customer service. The agents carry hand-held devices that can access reservation and baggage records, book new flights and print boarding passes -- situations that would have been harder to resolve in the past without technology. The devices even provide food and hotel vouchers to stranded travelers.

"Instead of customers having to wait in line, our Red Coats are able to approach customers and resolve their issues on the spot," Zupancic said.

Delta returned the agents to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport last year. They made their debut in Atlanta last month. The airline's goal is to deploy the

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scarlet-jacketed agents in seven other big airports by October and eventually three others.

Thirty-five Red Coats have been assigned to Terminal Two, the International Terminal, concourses and gate areas where Delta flights come and go.

Kirma Pantuso was a Red Coat in 2005, when Delta ended the program. She was shifted to the ticket counter. When she heard the airline was reviving the iconic servicethat originated in 1960, she applied for a spot.

"It's been missed the last few years, so it's a good thing to come back. It's a nice customer touch," Pantuso said.

Delta is continually looking for ways to use technology to move passengers more quickly to their flights.

Last month, the airline introduced a paperless boarding pass program that allows passengers to get an electronic boarding pass on cell phones or iPods if they are on a nonstop flight out of Salt Lake City's airport.

In 2007, English-speaking and Spanish-speaking kiosks were installed in Terminal Two. They issue boarding passes to customers flying internationally, as well as to U.S. destinations.