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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Delta Air Lines plans to add service to a dozen more cities to its Salt Lake hub.
The airline, which has about 3,900 workers in Utah, announced Wednesday that it was reducing capacity at its Cincinnati hub by 26 percent while adding new nonstop flights to 20 destinations from the Salt Lake and Atlanta hubs.
Delta spokesman Anthony Black said the Salt Lake hub "will probably see about, I'm guessing, in the neighborhood of 12 new destinations. ... It might be a city we already serve from Delta, but it will be new to you in Salt Lake."
One of the new Salt Lake destinations is Columbus, Ohio, which the company had previously announced. The others have not been announced.
"From a Salt Lake standpoint right now, you guys have gotten a number of new flights over the past calendar year," Black said. "You continue to grow. You went from the low 300s to almost 400 flights now, so Salt Lake has seen a significant increase in the number of daily flights as well as destinations that you serve."
The Cincinnati cuts could cost up to 1,000 jobs. Those would be in addition to 7,000 cuts announced a year ago. Before that, 16,000 other jobs were shed since 2001.
Delta also said it will accelerate the removal of widebody Boeing 767-200 jets to simplify its fleet as it fights to avoid a bankruptcy filing after piling up $10 billion in losses since January 2001.
ABX Air Inc. of Wilmington, Ohio, said it will spend about $190 million to buy 11 of the 767-200 passenger airplanes from Delta and convert them into freighter planes.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
