While it must be nice for those whom choose their connecting hub, for many of us it's based on price and we get stuck with the routing given for fare.

Out of Calgary or Edmonton, it's cheaper to fly to Phoenix via a 2000 mile diversion through MSP than through SLC. CO had a better offering to much of the South from the West than DL, but with CO's departure, so too will some of the Skyteam FF'ers unless DL maintains the SLC hub and starts to offer reasonable fares for transit through SLC.

SLC cannot be replaced by MSP and those whom post above that they think that MSP can serve as a replacement intra-western hub, this is crazy. For intra-western states travel - Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Oregon, as well as Western Canada... SLC is a sensible option, MSP is just not.

I think many DL flyers in the North Western US and Western Canada are interested to follow the AS / DL tie-up and the proposed closer co-operation that has been promised from Spring 2010. But I don't see SLC disappearing anytime soon without DL largely writing off a sizeable chunk of the NW/W Canada market.