Executives of the privately held print shop chain eventually found a solution to their business traveling woes. In 2001 AlphaGraphics moved its headquarters and about 40 staff members to Salt Lake City, the home of Delta Air Line's third largest hub.

"Delta's presence in Salt Lake was one of the big factors in that decision," said Keith Gerson, AlphaGraphics' vice president of sales, marketing and development. "Our executives now have an easier time catching flights, and our franchise owners and prospective franchisees have fewer problems getting here."

Delta acquired its Salt Lake hub in 1987 when it took over Los Angeles-based Western Airlines. It subsequently turned Utah into its third busiest flight center, a development that over the years brought billions in economic benefits to the state.

Even operating under the protective umbrella of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Delta will continue to bring thousands of tourists, conventioneers and business travelers to Utah. And its presence probably will remain a big selling point in luring additional companies and jobs to the area.

"All you have to do to judge the economic importance of Salt Lake's airport and the Delta hub is drive along Bangerter Highway and look at the national companies that have set up operations here," said James Wood, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah. "One of the big reasons they're here is because of the ease of air travel out of Salt Lake City."

Of the 477 daily departures from Salt Lake City International, Delta and its regional partners SkyWest and Atlantic Southeast Airlines fly just under 84 percent of those flights. Yet behind those numbers are nearly 3,900 employees who spend their paychecks throughout the community buying groceries and automobiles, paying mortgages and rent, taking their children to the pediatrician and buying gas produced at local refineries.

Despite its bankruptcy, Delta is expected to continue with its normal flight schedule at Salt Lake City International. And that is good news for the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau, which relies on the airline in its efforts to bring major conventions to Utah.

"Whenever we meet with convention planners one of their big concerns is their ability to get attendees here. If we didn't have a Delta hub, it wouldn't matter how many hotel rooms we have or the quality of our restaurants and the recreational activities in the area," said Mike White, the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau's vice president of sales and marketing. "But just being able to say we're a Delta hub city quells a lot of fears."

There is scarcely a segment of the Utah economy that is untouched, either directly or indirectly, by Delta's presence, said Jeff Thredgold, economic consultant to Zions First National Bank.

A well-known public speaker, Thredgold routinely relies on the easy availability of Delta flights to get him to his various engagements. "Their [Delta's] decision last February to close the Dallas-Fort Worth hub and expand the number of flights out of Salt Lake City personally was a godsend. It made it far easier to get where I need to go."

Although current estimates of the importance of Delta's hub to the Utah economy are lacking, a recent paper by Bernard L. Weinstein and Terry L. Clower, a professor and assistant professor of applied economics at the University of North Texas, provides some insights.

Their paper, written last November, looked at the expected economic and fiscal consequences to the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Delta's decision to shut down its Texas hub - a smaller operation than Delta's hub in Salt Lake City. They projected:

* Total economic activity in the region would decline by $782 million

* Wages, salaries and benefits would fall by $344 million,

* State and local taxes would drop by nearly $56 million.

"We were fortunate in that we saw continued growth in our economy after Delta's departure," Weinstein said. "But overall it still had a detrimental effect on the regional economy. After all, about 7,000 people lost their jobs" in the area as a result of the airline's decision.

steve@sltrib.com