Originally Posted by
CPH-Flyer
And connecting in ORD does not have the alternative of connecting in Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam? It is not just connecting in Copenhagen that opens the door to considering other connection points. It happens as soon as you don't have a non stop flight.
There are cities in the US without TATL flights, so passengers going there would anyway need to connect in the US, but absence of a TATL is probably rather indicative of the passenger flow.
Never mind the need for connections at major US transit hubs, normal travelers from secondary airports in Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, may not even have options to connect without bypassing Copenhagen, Stockholm, or Oslo. In such scenarios, Aarhus comes to mind, one-stop connection before the long haul would be the norm.
When comes to the US, normal travelers don't stop at ORD when their final destinations is another 4 hours+ of flying time to the west coast. People will take a west coast long haul nearly always.