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Originally Posted by PDX City-State
I think that's in the cards--but it has gotten SO much better. I remember when there were only three daily directs to NYC--and now Delta alone does three a day during summer (not during pandemic summers though), and I believe Alaska has three as well. And two airlines servicing directs to London, a direct to Tokyo, supposedly directs to Paris and Seoul were in the works pre-COVID.
Totally agree we're not as rich in directs as Seattle or SF, but man, it's so much better than it was a decade ago.
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I became an airline fan in the late 1970s and geeked out on route data. At that time PDX had no non stops east of Chicago and the only international flights were to Vancouver.
Before deregulation of the industry, airlines were "forced" to fly unprofitable routes in order to get the rights to fly profitable ones. This lead to some interesting routes, like TWA flying Lockheed L1011 jumbo tri-jets from PDX to SEA to STL. Eastern flew L1011s from PDX to SEA to ATL. Today all PDX - SEA flights are on commuter jets or turboprops.
I flew PDX - SEA on an Eastern L1011 (about 300 seats) - there were about 5 passengers on board.