Originally Posted by
TRAVELSIG
my understanding was that as soon as the subsidy by local/state governments was pulled the route was also brought to an end which leads me to believe that the subsidy was needed to make this route work.
Intel and NIKE could surely shed more light on this than I can.
There simply does not seem to be enough O&D traffic in and out of PDX to support non-stop international service. Delta used to use PDX to top-off the tanks of its Asia-bound MD-11s, because the machines never met their fuel consumption/range goals, and PDX was a cost-effective stop on the US west coast. Thus there was for a while some service from PDX to Asia. Since the introduction of longer-range aircraft flying to Asia from the eastern US, international service from PDX has pretty much disappeared.
I think all that is left of international service to/from PDX (outside of some Air Canada feeder flights to AC hubs) is a couple of leftover Delta routes. There are to my knowledge no European or Asian carriers that serve PDX.