Originally Posted by
Yaatri
The two cities are of similar size, but I think Pittsburgh is better known outside the U.S. than Cincinnati because of its historical association with steel industry. Pittsburgh has a well know University CMU, better museums ans is more cosmopolitan than Cincinnati, which is more provincial IMHO. None of this has anything to do with location of a hub though. If it were not for the research triangle, Raleigh-London would be odd too. It will never be like NYC-LON or NYC-PAR.
When delta was a hub in Cincinnati there were quite a few corporate hq of companies in Cincinnati. These corporate hq wanted direct international flights.
Paris route was kept because of the corporate nterests in Paris.
A few companies relocated to a different hub city for the direct flights...one being Chiquita.
RDU-London is for the pharma and the research companies and the university ties between the two places.