The good news for Japanese pax is that once they've successfully negotiated immigration in PDX, they'll still have the opportunity to transit through MSP/DTW if they want to get to any destination beyond the west coast

Along the lines of what mymiles2go said, it's all about Portland being able to tell the business community that it has direct service to Asia. However, in order to keep the PDX-NRT service viable in the long run, I would think that having other west coast traffic feeding into it would be necessary. Since most of the west coast destinations served by AS are also available from SEA, I hope that the Port of Portland and/or NW can work with immigration officials to reverse any existing negative perception.


[This message has been edited by abaraff (edited Jan 09, 2004).]