A graduate in German, Jake has a passion for history and regional aviation, and enjoys sampling new carriers and aircraft. He has visited OEM facilities as far and wide as Bristol, Toulouse, and Seattle, and recently enjoyed the milestone of flying his 150th sector as a passenger. Based in Norfolk, UK.
Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) in Utah has finally completed a 12-year construction and redevelopment project valued at more than $5 billion. The final phase will officially go live on Tuesday with the opening of the last section of Concourse B East. Here, the majority of the new gates are set to be used by United Airlines, despite its US legacy rival Delta Air Lines being SLC's top user.
The airport's long-term redevelopment has truly been a labor of love, with tens of thousands of workers dedicating tens of millions of hours of work over 12 years in order to make The New SLC Redevelopment Program a reality. Given the large scale of the project, the celebrations were equally ambitious, with a major ceremony held on Saturday, October 24, to mark the completion of the rebuild.
United Airlines Will Get Five Of The Seven New Gates
With the last remaining section of Concourse B East opening to the public on Tuesday, Salt Lake City International Airport has officially closed the book on its ambitious rebuild. According to the facility, this expansion will add some 132,000 square feet (12,263 square m) of real estate to the growing airport, with six concessions set to be housed. These will include Einstein Bros. Bagels, Monarca, and Swig.
On the operational side of things, this expansion will also see seven new gates added to the airport. While SLC is mainly associated with Delta Air Lines, it is notable that, of these seven new gates, five will be reserved for use by 
United Airlines, one of Delta's main US rivals. The other two will be common-use gates. Bill Wyatt, the Executive Director of the Salt Lake City Department of Airports, said on Saturday:
"We stand here today in this beautiful airport because of the dedication of hundreds of workers. (...) They had the foresight and determination to build a completely new airport, and they did so despite numerous challenges."
A Day Of Celebration
Wyatt's speech was made as part of a wider event commemorating the 12-year journey that has resulted in Salt Lake City having a rebuilt airport. Given the long timeframe, this project has been a multi-part affair, with Simple Flying covering the third phase back in October of 2024. This weekend, the airport marked the completion of the redevelopment with a celebration with the theme 'Gateway to the World.'
The extravagant ceremony featured aspects relating to both art and music, with "a suspended art installation featuring about 2,500 colorful, laser-cut acrylic airplanes" and an ensemble of 37 singers and 21 musicians being among the highlights on these fronts. The airport also showcased "a 15-minute vignette from a Salt Lake Airport documentary produced by Avalanche Studios" on Saturday night.
All in all, it took almost 25,000 craftworkers a combined 18 million hours across the 12-year rebuild, which started back in July 2014, in order to bring the New SLC Redevelopment Program to life. Even during its phased opening since 2020, the new Salt Lake City airport has already won numerous awards, and it will hope that it will continue to see success now that its redevelopment program is finished.
Delta Remains The Airport's Dominant Operator
While Star Alliance founding member United Airlines has been given five of the seven new gates in Salt Lake City as the airport's final new section opens, its presence at the facility is still dwarfed by that of its SkyTeam rival 
Delta Air Lines. Using November of 2026 as an example, Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that Delta has planned 7,182 flights from SLC, compared to United Airlines' 593.
With that being said, United has experienced stronger year-on-year growth at SLC, with its November 2026 total being 2.8% higher than last year, compared to 1.6% for Delta. Furthermore, Delta's seat capacity has actually dropped by 0.5% year-on-year despite more flights, while United's is up by 1.8%. Even so, with Delta operating 7,182 of SLC's 9,733 November departures, it remains dominant in Utah.