Editor’s Note: A Choice Development

When Delta Air Lines began flying to sitka last May, some local leaders assumed the move was part of Deltas effort to invade Alaska Airlines home turf and undermine the Seattle-based airline in a first step to acquiring it on the cheap. Why else would a global airline fly to a city with just 9,000 residents? We began to hear rumblings among a few influential local executives of an effort to get locals to boycott Delta. The loss of Alaska Airlines, they argued, would be devastating to the community.

That sounded to us like a good story, so we asked veteran aviation reporter Karen West, who wrote our Battle for Seattle cover story last year, to look into the issue. She came back with a far more nuanced tale. Turns out that Alaska Airlines is doing just fine, thank you very much, and Delta insists it has no interest in acquiring Alaska the airline or the state.

And far from causing Seattle harm, Deltas push into Seattle has been a boon to the region. Its many new flights to foreign destinations have made it easier for employees of our trade-dependent companies to do business overseas. These flights also attract more international visitors to our shores.

Meanwhile, thousands of Delta employees have made their homes here, and Delta is making notable contributions to local charities. Strong competition, it turns out, is making both airlines better while also helping to build a more vibrant economy, a stronger community.

While its essential for Alaska to remain a strong, locally based business, a major metropolitan region like Seattle needs the added service provided by a second major airline. Competition between the two airlines has helped make Sea-Tac the fastest growing major airport in the nation. For that growth, we can thank the visionary business leaders who 25 years ago pushed for the construction of a third runway at a time when critics said it was unnecessary. That added capacity played a significant role in making our region attractive to business.

Today, there is a cacophonous chorus of critics complaining that too much growth is hurting our community. Certainly, rapid growth can be disruptive. But its a problem we are lucky to have. The alternative could be shrinking government revenues that lead to shrinking services, starving arts organizations and persistent unemployment.

We should thank our lucky stars for our strong economy and take advantage of this period of prosperity and cheap resources to build the infrastructure we will need in 15 years when the Seattle area will have some 800,000 new residents. We should be training people for the new jobs being created, and welcoming newcomers to Seattle to maintain that growth.

Delta is one such newcomer. It and the many other global companies setting up shop in Seattle are evidence of our citys dynamism our growing presence in the world. Even as we do what we can to mitigate the negative impact of growth, we should welcome that new energy and the new world of possibility it opens up.