HUNTINGTIN, W.Va. — Huntington Tri-State Airport will soon begin offering daily non-stop flights on Delta Air Lines to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

Beginning March 2, 2011, Delta will upgrade their current service by shifting their connecting flights from Cincinnati to Detroit. Delta Connection carrier Comair will operate the two daily roundtrip flights with the passenger-friendly, 50-seat CRJ-200 aircraft.

The new service will serve 144 destinations with a single stop; 87 of which are new one-stop destinations compared with the current service to Cincinnati. “Our new service between Huntington Tri-State Airport and our hub at Detroit

Metropolitan Wayne County Airport opens up a world of new destinations for our Huntington customers”, said Joe Esposito, Delta’s Managing Director — Domestic Network Planning. “From Detroit, customers will enjoy convenient connecting service to cities across the globe, including London-Heathrow, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.”

“We are very pleased with the new service to Detroit,” said Airport Director Jerry Brienza.

“The tri-state area will now be linked to the second largest hub and international gateway in the Delta system, providing our customers with more than twice as many one-stop destinations than we have at the present.”

With more than 500 flights every day, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is a major hub for Delta. In recent years the airport has grown into a significant international gateway, with nonstop service to 19 cities worldwide, including Amsterdam; Frankfurt, Germany; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Hong Kong; Seoul, S. Korea; London-Heathrow; Nagoya, Japan; Tokyo-Narita and Shanghai, China.

Delta recently applied with the U.S. Department of Transportation to add service from Detroit to Beijing, China, and in February, will begin new service from Detroit to Haneda Airport in central Tokyo.