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Delta Air Lines said Friday it will start direct flights from Salt Lake City International Airport to Europe next year - a route state officials say will end in Paris.
"We plan on having an announcement about our 2008 international flight [from Salt Lake] in the next couple of weeks," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Friday.
Black refused to disclose the international destination on the grounds that the company does not discuss details of negotiations on new routes. But on Friday, the Governor's Office of Economic Development board approved a request from Delta for $250,000 to help fund the startup of nonstop transatlantic flights from Salt Lake to Paris, possibly in the spring.
The dollars are part of a larger financial package that also includes city and other state funds. The Salt Lake City Department of Airports has agreed to contribute $655,000 in cash and $345,000 in waived landing fees. The Utah Office of Tourism will supply marketing services valued at $600,000.
"The package will be forthcoming . . . , we intend to support it financially," airport spokeswoman Barbara Gann said Friday.
The GOED board approved the grant with strings. The money will be delivered to Delta only after the first flight departs for Europe.
"It will help us promote our parks, our ski resorts and help facilitate commerce between Europe and Utah," said board member Jerry Oldroyd, adding that it also will encourage Utah companies to develop new overseas subsidiaries, increase business ties with Europe and boost overseas travel.
Delta claims the economic value to Utah of the route will be about $90 million a year. It should generate at least 1,100 jobs in the state, the airline told GOED.
Jeff Edwards, president of the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, said the route will benefit European companies operating in the outdoors industry, such as Salomon and Rossignol, whose executives frequently travel on business.
Ski maker Salomon is owned by Helsinki, Finland-based Amer Sports Corp., which moved its winter and outdoor sports operations to Ogden last year. Rossignol Ski Co., whose former French parent company was sold to a U.S.. firm in 2005, opened a new North American headquarters in Park City this year.
The possibility of a nonstop route from Salt Lake to Europe first surfaced in August 2006, when Glen Hauenstein, Delta's executive vice president of network and revenue management, said his airline would launch service to Paris or London this summer, if it could get help from local governments and businesses.
Local officials immediately scrambled to put together a suitable financial package, but the plan never materialized.
Earlier this year, Chief Operating Officer Jim Whitehead said Delta was "actively" looking at starting a route in 2008.
"You typically analyze these things during summer and early fall and announce them in October for a startup in the spring," Whitehead said.
The Salt Lake Chamber has pushed hard for a route to Europe.
"We don't know that this is a done deal, but we are very hopeful," said Natalie Gochnour, the chamber's vice president for policy and communications.
"The chance of a direct flight to Europe would plant the seeds for many of the aspirations that we have for the business community, namely, to become a world city," she said.
* $250,000 from the Governor's Office of Economic Development
* $655,000 in cash, $345,000 in waived landing fees from the Salt Lake City Department of Airports
* $600,000 worth of marketing services from the Utah Office of Tourism