Viva la France! It was a great day for Salt Lake City and Delta when the first transatlantic flight to Paris launched last week. It was over 2 years in the planning but state, city and county officials along with the business community came together to bring Europe a little closer to Utah.
The festivities started with the arrival flight from Paris. The airport officials graciously offered to meet the flight with a water cannon salute and a police escort to the Delta gate – it was quite a site for the media to cover this historic event from the tarmac. Upon arrival at the gate, the customers were greeted by Utah volunteers who provided them with a gift bag commemorating the inaugural flight. The customers were completely shocked by the enormous crowd outside the customs area when they arrived!
On the other side of the gate, the activities for the departing flight were in full swing. The Paris Restaurant in SLC provided yummy French cuisine including chocolate truffles that were to die for!!! The local Delta airport staff served the crowd of several hundred people. Janet Todd, a local musician, serenaded the crowd with her French accordion music.
All the local politicians were in attendance for the ribbon cutting ceremony – a last minute change to a meeting allowed Governor Jon Huntsman, SLC Mayor Ralph Becker and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Caroon to be present at the gate to help cut the inaugural ribbon along with the Delta flight crew.
The customers were interviewed by the local media and some of the great stories included a gentleman who was traveling to Paris to meet his internet girlfriend, winners of radio promotions who had never been out of the country and a local SLC resident was traveling to Bristol, England via Paris which reduced his normal travel time by 5 hours.
It was a great day for the airport as well. Brett Rydault, Delta’s station manager, organized pizza parties for the Delta employees to celebrate. I was fortunate enough to be on the inaugural flight to Paris. It was one of the more memorable experiences I’ve had in my 17 years with Delta. As the Delta airport staff gathered on the tarmac to wave goodbye, the water cannon salute bid the flight “bon voyage”!
Julie
Marketing Manager
Delta Air Lines
June 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I look forward to being able to use this flight in the future to reduce travel time to Europe and North Africa. It will be a treat.
One interesting piece of trivia is that even though the Paris restaurant does server some French cuisine, it is not named after the city in France. It is named after the Paris department store in Salt Lake City that the owner has fond memories of from when he was young. The Paris has been closed for many years.
Here’s one piece of trivia that is not so nice for people coming home from Paris. Imay make some people want to think about not using the flight. When you clear customs, the agents are bound by the laws of Utah about alcohol. So, if you bring back more than two bottles of wine, the excess wine will be confiscated and destroyed. If you clear customs in New York or Georgia (assuming that’s where the other flights come through) you will not have this problem. It probably doesn’t affect a lot of people, but don’t expect all of that nice 6-pak of wine you bought in the Loire to make it home. Paul Rolley expounded on this in his 6/11 Salt Lake Tribune column. He gave an example where it happened to the poor people of a flight from Paris diverted here because of a storm and quotes a customs official saying they have to enforce the local law no matter where the flight started or where the in-transit people are going. So, two bottles OK. Everything else destroyed.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Paris is a great place to start a route at. It is, after all, the City of Lights! Ayez un bon vol!
June 12th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I think this is great!
June 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Well, I’m excited. I need to be in Amsterdam for a couple weeks on Business. I’ll take the standard SLC->ATL->AMS out and AMS->CDG->SLC home. That will give me the ability to see the differences between the flights. I hadn’t expected to be able to use it so soon after it’s start, but it just goes to show — you never know. I do know I like the International lounge at CDG better than most.