Counterpoint

The May 2 article, "Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on short end of Delta jet swap," overlooked many key facts about Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the quality of the product that Delta Air Lines delivers there.

At MSP, Delta operates nearly 500 daily nonstop flights to 125 destinations worldwide. The in-flight experience on Delta's MSP fleet has improved significantly in recent years.

Our daily nonstop service to Tokyo is operated with new, state-of-the-art Boeing 777 jets. Our flights to Amsterdam and Paris are flown primarily with state-of-the-art Airbus A330 widebody aircraft.

And London-Heathrow flights are operated with Boeing 767-400 jets, which will soon feature full flat-bed seats in BusinessElite, popular Economy Comfort seating and other amenities.

For our domestic operation, we recently retired all the Saab A340 turboprop aircraft. We have eliminated nearly all flying of DC-9s. Most of the replacement aircraft have been newer, quieter MD-90 jets with refurbished interiors.

Other additions to our MSP service includes in-flight Wi-Fi and Economy Comfort on our entire domestic dual-class fleet, first-class cabins available on every route with more than two hours of flying time, and more first-class seats than any other airline.

Finally, we continue to operate more departures on A319/320 aircraft than any other fleet operating from MSP.

Some other facts about Delta and MSP that the article failed to mention:

• Delta has invested more than $40 million to update the lobby, gates, Delta Sky Clubs and airport technology since 2010.

• During the last 15 months, Delta has delivered stellar operational performance at MSP, with a dramatic improvement in on-time departures (topping 80 percent in April) and top-tier baggage performance compared with other airline hub operations.

• Feedback from our customer surveys at MSP has shown significant improvement over the past year.

• The airport was ranked the No. 1 domestic airport by Travel and Leisure magazine.

Above all, Delta's thousands of Minneapolis-St. Paul employees consistently deliver a world-class travel experience to all our customers. It's an experience that is hard to match anywhere.

_____

Bill Lentsch is senior vice president, Minnesota operations, for Delta Air Lines.