Two irreconcilable facts have characterized Pittsburgh’s relations withthe rest of the world for the last few years. The expansion of businessfor the Pittsburgh region has reflected a greater boost frominternational than domestic customers, and the city has also had nodirect flights to Europe since 2004. At last though, the contradictionwill fly away–starting June 3, 2009, when Delta Airlines, in a jointventure with Air France, begins five flights a week to Paris.
The flights to Paris will take off again as a result of a long campaign that involved the business and nonprofit communities, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County, city leaders and even the Pittsburgh Symphony, all of whom became involved in selling the airline industry on another important fact: Some 330 people on average fly to Europe from Pittsburgh every weekday–enough to fill at least one large aircraft, according to Ken Zapinski of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
“Pittsburgh has been the largest market east of the Rocky Mountains without a direct flight to Europe,” he says, “and that has been a huge issue for this community.”
The loss of service was a legacy of airline-industry turmoil following 9/11, which led to the loss in 2002 of daily direct flights to Paris and then withdrawal of US Airways from Pittsburgh. Daily flights to London and Frankfort touched the tarmac for the last time in 2004.
International business in the region had grown around those flights. And so had the region’s capacity to send doctors and scholars to Europe and the Middle East, and bring seekers of health and knowledge to Western Pennsylvania. With worsening congestion at airports of arrival on the East Coast, businesses with international stakes warned they could not continue to keep headquarter operations here.
Fortunately, the worsening parts of the story become tales of what might have been. Celebrations “being planned as we speak,” Zapinksi says, will mark the June-3 takeoff, as Pittsburghers once again enjoy aviation’s equivalent of a hop, skip, and a jump to Paris–and destinations beyond.
Source: Allegheny Conference, Ken Zapinski, Catherine DeLoughry
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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