Originally Posted by joejones

Not really. NGO and OSA have always had very weak long-haul service relative to TYO, even during the late 80s and early 90s when many people thought Japan was on track to overtake the US. NW tried OSA-JFK/LAX flights for a brief period in the early 90s, as well as an infamous OSA-SYD fifth freedom flight, but they all did badly and I believe they never achieved daily service on any of those routes. After KIX opened in 1994 and created a glut in airport capacity, JAL and ANA both dabbled in long-haul service from Osaka, but those routes also didn't stick.

This has always been interesting to me because both cities have absolutely massive metropolitan populations and economies. In GDP terms, the Kansai region economy is roughly on par with metro Chicago, and greater Nagoya's is comparable in size to South Florida, Singapore, or Hong Kong. Plenty of massive global corporate HQs in both cities. They are each in the right "weight class" to support a lot more traffic, but for whatever reason, they never have. I think part of it is simply that they are more domestically-focused, and all of the international business tends to naturally gravitate to Tokyo, especially in high-margin fields like finance; also I think Tokyo companies are more likely to pay for premium cabins...