kEiThZ
Superstar
^ or about the death of an American popstar...
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I think its just numbers. There are 330 million yanks, which means that there will be millions of not-so-bright bulbs over there. Proportionally, though I don't think Americans are significantly better or worse than most other countries. Even the media aren't as bad as people think. I find most news outlets only marginally worse than say the CBC at coveing international news. None of them compare to say the BBC but in general they aren't as bad as people think. They certainly have a better distribution of reporters globally than any Canadian network. What's often missed too though, is that the US is generally a newsmaker globally, so it shouldn't be surprising for so much of that news to be aired at home.
I think its just numbers. There are 330 million yanks, which means that there will be millions of not-so-bright bulbs over there. Proportionally, though I don't think Americans are significantly better or worse than most other countries. Even the media aren't as bad as people think. I find most news outlets only marginally worse than say the CBC at coveing international news. None of them compare to say the BBC but in general they aren't as bad as people think. They certainly have a better distribution of reporters globally than any Canadian network. What's often missed too though, is that the US is generally a newsmaker globally, so it shouldn't be surprising for so much of that news to be aired at home.
This is just classic Canuck American envy.
Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, San Antonio, Nashville, New Orleans, St. Louis, and San Diego are all cities of millions with not a single overseas flight.
It may also have to do with the emphasis on the "hub and spoke" organization of air travel.
adma, some of those airports definitely did have international flights in the past--St. Louis and earlier Kansas City were TWA hubs, New Orleans was a fairly significant hub for Latin America--but others never did. In general, though, there was much more international air service from the "heartland" two or three decades ago than today. That can only be a statement about demand. There are also a whole bunch of even bigger cities that have only seasonal service or only one flight (Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Memphis, Denver, Portland).
Hydrogen: Sure, hubs play a role, but Canada has hubs as well. If there weren't demand for a 767 from Halifax to London every day (or Edmonton to London, for that matter) it wouldn't fly. Some of those cities I listed are also airline hubs, but they still don't have international service. Halifax doesn't serve as a hub beyond the Maritimes for Air Canada, and there are more people in St. Louis than in all of Atlantic Canada. It also doesn't explain the distinct lack of charters from any of these American cities.
Wonderboy: That doesn't explain cities like Edmonton which also has non-stop service to Europe even though it's not a hub, it has barely a million people, and it's far from any coast. Calgary has multiple flights every day year-round to Europe, even using larger aircraft like the 330s.
Another example: In 2008, Montreal had 4,466,400 passengers flying to international destinations not including the United States. By contrast, Philadelphia--a major hub and larger city--had 3,611,000, including Mexico and Canada. Even Boston, a larger city than Montreal that's usually considered a pretty worldly place, had only 3,808,000. More international passengers flew out of the Guam airport than out of Seattle.