Not only merger mania, but over all economic malaise.

World Bank warns countries to prepare for a global slump ? USATODAY.com

This pretend recovery by printed money will peter out soon enough and its going to get rough for a while everywhere, especially international. Now is not the time to be embarking on "international hub growth" plans or any such thing for a market like SLC. The current facilities are fine for what we use them for and at best we should take a "wait and see" attitude towards arbitrary "fortress hubs". I like SLC and very much hope we keep it but now is not the time to be dumping money into something like this.

This is frivolous spending that will cause a mini stimulus in SLC initially followed by broader economic suffering even if DL doesn't "pull out" as an arbitratry connection hub. They will look at this one day as an investiment about as wise as the STL and CVG "runways to nowhere" based on fanatasy growth numbers and a mad dash to reach V1 on the financing to kick start someone's pet project/jobs program.