On Tuesday, Delta announced former Northwest Airlines chief executive Richard Anderson was picked to replace Gerald Grinstein, who had pledged to retire after leading Delta through a painful 19-month bankruptcy and reorganization.

Two days later, Ed Bastian, Delta's chief financial officer and new president, stood before a crowd of politicians, business leaders and employees to announce that the carrier would begin its first-ever nonstop route from Salt Lake City's airport to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris.

In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune before the Paris route announcement, Bastian discussed how Delta made up its mind to launch the route next June. He also discussed his view of the top leadership change and the revivifying airline:

In May, Grinstein said it would be a couple of years before Delta would be in a position to launch a nonstop route to Europe because of aircraft availability. Others have said Salt Lake City doesn't have enough passenger volumes. What changed?

I think those are all still challenges. The launch is going to take some work. We are going to work with not just the Salt Lake community, but also neighboring states [to promote the route]. With respect to Delta, we do have aircraft [domestically] that we are looking to deploy toward international service. And as we redeploy it frees up other aircraft such as the 767-300ER that we are going to launch this service with.

Is this route an unusually risky undertaking for Delta?

Any time you launch a new international service, it's an expensive investment. So that's why we have worked with local officials here to garner some support to defray the initial start-up cost and the marketing and advertising promotion. Since we've been restructuring, we have been making a lot of changes. We have created international destinations at a faster pace than anyone in the industry. A big part of our turnaround has been focused on taking some new adventures. You don't expect them all to work. We've got a high likelihood that this is going to work.

Why did you chose Paris instead of London or other European cities?

Paris is the home to our partner in the SkyTeam Alliance, Air France. Air France has up to 200 destinations they serve out of Paris. There is a multiple of connect opportunities that London [and other cities] doesn't have.

Can you give us a sense of what it costs to launch a route like this?

We don't publicize the cost of our start-up. Certainly the biggest investment we make is the asset. A 767-300ER is a piece of equipment that lists for $100 million, plus or minus. It's a big investment.

What are the thresholds for determining whether the route is successful?

It's going to be profitability. If we are making money on the route, it's going to be a success. And if we're losing money, it's not going to be a success.

Obviously, people will clamor for more trans-Atlantic destinations. Will a successful SLC-Paris route make the case for more overseas destinations?

Clearly if Paris works it will enhance the opportunity for additional service. The alliance was the critical driver toward Paris. When you look at other European destinations [that Delta could fly to from Salt Lake], they will be handicapped because you don't have that level of support. But I'll be honest with you. We are open to being surprised by the roaring success of this flight. And if it is a great success, there's no question you'll get other destinations.

How much demand in Europe exists for nonstop flights to Salt Lake?

I do believe there is an element of demand. But clearly, the lion's share of the traffic we expect will be U.S.-based.

Will it be seasonal in nature? Or do you expect strong demand over the 12 months?

We think the summer, spring, fall will be the heavier patterns. So there is a possibility we may reduce some of the weekly frequencies during the winter. We are launching daily. We'll see how the schedule goes, but we may pull back just a little bit in the winter if the demand isn't that strong.

Moving on to other issues, on Tuesday, Anderson was named the new CEO of Delta. The former Northwest CEO was appointed to Delta's board earlier this year. You were promoted to president, but you still retain the title of chief financial officer. Why?

I'm going to be recruiting for a CFO. That person will be CFO and I'll be the president.

So there will be a triumvirate, a CEO, a president and a chief operating officer running the operation?

At the present time, that's right. We've said that we're discussing what exactly the COO role [now held by Jim Whitehurst] will be. We'll be making some further announcements in the next couple of weeks about that.

You've been asked a million times about the possibility of a merger with Northwest, so how about one million and one?

I can tell you we have no plans, no intentions, no desires to do a merger with Northwest. Richard, while he's from Northwest, left Northwest, and he's at Delta. And in my opinion, he's taken a step up. We will look at consolidation in the future if it advantages Delta. Our view is if we were to pursue consolidation, it would be Delta calling the shots. But Richard said it best, the short answer on Northwest is no and the long answer on Northwest is no.

The succession question was the first big issue that the new board had to grapple with after Delta emerged from bankruptcy. What are the next challenges?

How are we going to succeed in terms of the landscape within the airline industry? Consolidation is one of those topics. We need to have a good point of view on that. We need to look at how we're going to continue to improve the operation and invest in customer service. We are going to need to look at issues that surround the international strategy. It's been very successful to date. The next frontiers of international are Asia, India, the Middle East, Africa. And I think most importantly we need to continue to invest in our people and keep the employee spirit and momentum. We're going to motivate and we're not going to stop the acceleration of that until we're back on the top of the industry where we belong.

Is the bankruptcy reorganization plan proceeding as expected?

Absolutely. If you look at our financial results, we've been one of the more profitable carriers in the industry. If you look at our stock price, while it's been volatile, as all industries have been recently, Delta came out of bankruptcy with the second-highest market capitalization in the airline industry, second only to Southwest. So that tells you it's working. and the investors see it.

The board is happy. Richard is a member of that board. I think the promotion I've received to president is an indication that there is some strong continuing support for the management team. One of the real questions that the board had to struggle with through the succession was, do you appoint an individual who already has CEO experience in a big corporate environment or do you take a chance on someone that's new. They decided that if they could find someone that already had it and couple it with the leadership team at Delta, that was the best of all, and I'm very happy with how they've succeeded. I'm really, really excited to be working with Richard. He's a great guy.