Cody airport boosters are optimistic that they’ll be able to strike a deal with Delta Air Lines to restore service to Salt Lake City, though likely not for another year.

“I think that we would say that it’s very positive for 2027,” Dusty Spomer, the chairman of Cody Yellowstone Air Improvement Resources (CYAIR), said last week. 

The nonprofit organization works to boost commercial air service at Yellowstone Regional Airport. Cody hasn’t had a connection to Salt Lake since the summer of 2021, and airport officials and boosters have been trying to woo Delta back ever since.

While it looks like there won’t be a deal in place by next summer, both Spomer and Yellowstone Regional Airport Director Aaron Buck expressed high hope that Delta will eventually return.

“We still communicate with them, and we’re still talking about them, and I think we’re still part of their growth plan,” Buck said at the airport board’s Wednesday meeting. “It’s just a matter of when, not if, but it’s probably not as soon as we’d all like.”

CYAIR says it needs to offer a so-called “minimum revenue guarantee” to get Delta to return — pledging that the airline will receive at least a certain amount of revenue from their local flights. If ticket sales don’t bring in that much money, CYAIR will need to pay Delta the difference, likely drawn with a mix of public and private dollars.

At the board’s November meeting, Buck said he thinks Delta “wants to be here” but that striking a deal with the airline will require “significant support from the community.” He said even large airports like those in Los Angeles, Denver and Salt Lake have been needing to offer minimum revenue guarantees and are “paying millions of dollars to start new routes, even little routes.”

“It’s why we have a hard time trying to get one …,” Buck said.

While CYAIR’s negotiations with Delta may take additional time to develop, Spomer said the group is hoping to put together a separate deal that would lead to a more modest expansion of service for the summer of 2026. He told the Tribune he hopes to have more information to share soon.