Water cannons and Japanese dancers greeted the turnaround of Delta Air Lines' first nonstop flight between Salt Lake City and Tokyo on Wednesday.
A crowd gathered at Salt Lake City International Airport's Gate D6 for a ribbon-cutting with samurai swords.
The 243-seat Airbus departed Wednesday, a few hours after making the inaugural 10-hour, 20-minute flight from Narita Airport.
State tourism officials were on hand to meet with leaders of Japan's travel industry, who planned to soak up the sights in Utah.
A contingent of Utah travel and ski-industry officials boarded the return flight for a five-day tour of Japan.
"We're going to capture a new market -- Japanese skiers," Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, said by cell phone as the plane readied for takeoff.
The Utah team planned to rely on Yuichiro Miura, 76, the first man to ski down Mount Everest and owner of a second home in Park City, to help talk up Utah's slopes in Japan.
"We're the only airline with service to Tokyo from the Intermountain region," Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Wednesday. "We'll be able to absorb a lot of traffic from this region and feed it to Tokyo." Denver doesn't offer comparable direct service.
Flight 4260 to Tokyo, where passengers can pick up Delta connections to 14 other major Asian cities, "cuts substantial travel time and adds a great deal of convenience for company representatives who want to do business in Utah," Spencer Eccles, chairman of the Salt Lake Chamber's international business committee, told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Delta expects demand to justify the service every day except Tuesdays and Saturdays, and everyday travelers helped fill seats for the inaugural flights, Black said.
© Wire reports
18 Comments
Login to comment
Sarge
"We'e going to capture a new market - Japanese skiers"
So now the restaurants at Utah's ski resorts will have curry rice and udon.
Altria
This could lead to a huge influx of Mormons!
smithinjapan
Altria: You're probably not far off, and I've no doubt they had a bit of pull on the issue. Have you met Mormons in Japan? They use to come to my old house all the time, knew who I was before I met them, and could speak PERFECT English (though Japanese). They have a pretty good education system (including ESL exchanges) and people thereafter often go no missionary-like quests. This could easily expand efforts in Japan.
jonnyboy
joseph smith, dum dum, dum dum! lucy harris, smart smart, smart smart!
stirfry
utah's cool and the skiing is great but how many people would fly 7000 miles just to ski ?
kirakira25
You're kidding me right? Have they really done their research? Current economic downturn, Japanese only get a few days holiday at a time, fabulous skiing within easy reach of most areas of Japan, and Japanese langguage everywhere (as opposed to Utah I am assuming). Do they really think they are going to fill a plan full of people for Utah on ski trips?
ca1ic0cat
Mormons in Japan? What will be next, JWs going door to door? I don't understand why a new air route is such a big deal. But I guess time will tell.
Ken Watanabe
Ah, does it make the shortest flight to the US? Seattle is the closest city to fly from NRT, as far as I know.
Ah_so
Utah to Japan direct...this should be an occasion of national celebration.
Raja Kumar
Utah and Tokyo boost ties via nonstop flight. May be good idea to get Nikkei companies to set up some plants in Utah.
Let say a new Yamaha piano/musical instruments plant in Utah. They make better music than a airbus/boeing with noise pollution engines.
TokyoGas
Hmmm... Never been to Salt Lake and a non-stop flight sounds like a good idea. Additionally, I always thought that the Mormons were pretty cool. At least the ones I have met... friendly people.
tkoind2
On the up side, Utah is beautiful both for skiing and for other outdoor activities in Southern Utah and in the mountains. I have family there (non-Mormon) and usually fly through SF or Seattle, so this will make thing easier.
Maybe a little Japanese influence will help that sleepy, conservative state join the 21st century. That would be nice. But then again maybe we'll have endless waves of Japanese converts returning from ski/religious conversion trips to Salt Lake.
Moderator: Readers, Mormons in Japan are not relevant to this discussion.
Brunobear
Japanese people should welcome the new opportunity to fly direct to Salt Lake City. It is a beautiful safe City centrally situated to many of America's best natural feature: Grand Canyon, Zion, Monument Valley, Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Tetons, and the Rocky Mountains. I have visited there a number of times from Melbourne, Australia for skiing, at Alta (Gold Miners Daughter Lodge) where you get the best dry snow in the world. Of course Japanese skiers are going to want to go there if they know anything about skiing. They may even value going to listen and see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on Thursday afternoons or Sunday mornings - it is a memorable experience.
55% of the population is not Mormon, so it is not just a Mormon City.
I feel safe there. People are friendly and it is a very clean City.
They also have top Universities, such as Westminster (Ivy League), Brigham Young, University of Utah etc.
Salt Lake City is also driving distance to Las Vegas and that is an experience. Buy a house there (Las Vegas) now for US$30,000.
When I hear the Mormon choir sing the "Battle Hymm of the Republic", I does give me the feeling of closeness to God and spiritual. And I'm not religious! To walk out of a Supermarket and see towering snow covered mountains as a backdrop is also an experience. As I recall Delta Airlines is based in Salt Lake City. If the fares are reasonable, go and have a look. America is not expensive to visit.
Snolygoster
I only came because I thought there'd be a picture of the airport fanfare. JT, you need to include more pictures with your stories. Each page has 7-8 graphical ads, but often stories that would be much bettered by inclusion of a picture do not have one.
chuckers
Ummmm...You do know that HAWAII is part of the US, right? HNL and KOA are about 6-7 hours away from NRT via direct flight.
HAWAII is NOT the 48th prefecture.
nikoniko
chuckers - haha good post! // man ... this is SO upsetting!!! i already purchased tickets that take us to MINN then backtrack to DEN! at least UTAH is driveable to/from ! HIS sucks so much ... JTB too .. travel agencies fail ppl way too much
nikoniko
DELTA of course is not updated with info on the TOKYO - SLC fares/availability ;.;