Fred Reid, Delta Air Lines president and chief operating officer, was in Cincinnati on Tuesday to participate in the grand-opening ceremony for the company's new $17.3 million reservation call center on Plum Street downtown.

        The event came after pilots at Delta's Erlanger-based subsidiary Comair settled their 89-day strike Friday and pilots on Delta's mainline ratified their contract last week. Mr. Reid also is the chairman of the board of Delta Connection Inc., which oversees Delta's feeder system that includes Comair.

Gov. Bob Taft has a laugh while Delta Air Lines president and chief operating officer Fred Reid presents him with a mini Delta jet after the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new reservation center. (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        After the presentation, Mr. Reid took questions from reporters, including the Enquirer's James Pilcher:

        Question: Will Comair fully recover from the strike, and will Delta's second-largest hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport continue to grow?

        Answer: We will definitely recover what we had at Comair and restore it to what it was.

        I'm going to be sitting down with the president of Comair (today), and going through that fleet plan. Clearly, the strike went on much longer than we would have liked ... and I'm sure it went on longer than anyone in the community would have liked.

        The problems are solved; although I'm not in a position to speculate right now whether it's going to be 69 aircraft, or 78 aircraft or 85 aircraft. But we will aggressively rebuild the airline as fast as humanly possible.

Oops! Gov. Bob Taft holds an Ohio e/Corridor flag upside down at the dedication ceremony for the $17.3 million downtown Delta Reservation Center on Tuesday. | ZOOM |

       

        Q: Is Delta considering bringing in another Delta Connection carrier such as Atlantic Southeast or AC Jet or creating a codeshare with Mesa Airlines, which begins service in Cincinnati next month, to keep Delta from being stuck in the same situation of having its regional traffic supplied by a single carrier?

        A: I wouldn't want to make any vast pronouncement of that kind. We don't feel stuck in Cincinnati, we're proud to be here. We're proud of the way Comair and Delta partnered to serve this community. It has worked very well for decades, and we want to keep going.

        I don't want to speculate on how the landscape may change in the future. We have had no discussions in that regard (a possible Mesa codeshare), and they made that decision individually.

        Q: Is Delta happy with the new Comair contract?

        A: We didn't expect the strike in the first place, and we didn't expect it to last as long as it did. It is important for us to have a clear horizon with the Comair pilots ... and a horizon for five years to be able to plan our futures to know what the deal is going to be and to plan without having these disagreements again.

        We think they've got a great deal; we think we've got a fair deal. And I don't mean that fair is less than great, but it is fair and equitable, and we're happy to be moving forward and we're happy to be able to grow again. I think we all learned a lot; the entire regional industry learned a lot. We came to an equitable solution to both parties. We can still compete, and we can still grow and the pilots have got an industry leading contract.

        Q: Will the recently announced fare cuts by Delta — that were shadowed by other major carriers — provide relief to travelers in Cincinnati, which pay some of the highest fares in the nation because of Delta's local dominance?

        A: Every business is a matter of supply and demand, and not a lot of people focus on the fact that the airline business is required by its business travelers to keep tens of thousands of seats available for last-minute travel. If we sold all of our fares in advance, we could do that at lower prices, but then there would be no seats available for that last-minute must-go traveler.

        It's very important to understand that there are low fares available for those willing to plan their travel or buy last-minute over the Internet. The fact is, when you invest billions and billions of dollars into a community, you bring that benefit to the community which is very very real. The cities in America that are hubs and the cities that aren't hubs have very different profiles in terms of the vitality of their business community.

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