Originally Posted by
RedChili
When reading these comments, I almost get the impression that some posters assume that, apart from Los Angeles and San Francisco, everything west of Chicago is just one huge unpopulated desert. Flights to destinations in states such as Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado would entail serious backtracking from SFO or LAX. ORD is also a perfect hub for flights to destinations towards the south, such as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, etc. ORD is also a plausible transfer point for flights from Scandinavia to Florida. I'm pretty sure that you could even find a handful of people that live in the Los Angeles and San Francisco metro area that would rather fly out of a small local airport, such as ONT or OAK to ORD, instead of catching a flight from LAX or SFO.
By the way, the SAS decision to replace ARN-ORD with CPH-ATL is more or less a confirmation that it's mostly about connections. There is no other logical explanation why they have introduced ATL. I can't see why SAS would expect lots of Scandinavian customers to suddenly decide to fly to Atlanta instead of Chicago just because SAS will be a member of SkyTeam.
The original theory as offered by the other poster stated: 1) ORD is NOT O&D route for SAS; 2) final destination would be west coast. A lot of states you had brought up are not west coast (but mountain west).
I can buy ORD to Florida and points in between, as it is shorter enough after a long flight. Again, most people would not take an 8 hr TATL and then take another 4hrs+ flight to west coast.
Pax can also fly into NY, IAD, or even MIA to transfer onto other east coast final destination.