This petition is to support the initiative by the Regional Air Service Partnership to convince NorthWest/ AirFranceKLM to start a direct service to Amsterdam (NL) with connecting flights to many European and worldwide destinations. To: Mr. Douglas M Steenland, President and CEO of Northwest Airlines Corp From: Foreign students, scholars and postdoctoral researchers in the Pittsburgh area Re: Letter of support for introducing a direct flight from Pittsburgh to Amsterdam Dear Mr. Douglas, I am writing to you on behalf of foreign students, scholars, postdoctoral researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, regarding your consideration of introducing a direct flight from Pittsburgh to Europe. University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are homes of thousands of international students and researchers. In 2007, University of Pittsburgh alone enrolled 1,771 international students out of which ~20% from European countries and another ~40% from Asian countries like India, using Amsterdam as a hub on their way to their home countries. There were also 1,056 exchange visitors, post-docs, researchers, faculty, and staff from outside the U.S. We all travel to our home places and to conferences in Europe once a year or more often. Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and at Carnegie Mellon University likewise travel overseas often, as do job candidates and conference participants invited to Pittsburgh. University of Pittsburgh has a European Union Center, a Center for European Studies and a Center for Russian and East European Studies. All of them have vigorous programs that involve travel and visitors in both directions. Also, our relatives (e.g. parents) visit many of us. Currently there is no direct flight to Europe out of Pittsburgh International Airport. Every time we travel we change at least 2 planes, often 3 planes. Under these circumstances, the travel time is more than 20 hours, the luggage problems are frequent and the delays are immeasurable. A direct flight to Europe will alleviate many of these problems. When choosing an airline versus another airline beside the price (which many times is similar), convenience is a major decision factor, especially for long trips. Having the option of a direct flight, will definitely encourage us to use your airline. In addition, it might promote additional travel that we avoided due to the hassle of changing that many airplanes/airports. Thus, we, the large community of students, scholars and postdoctoral researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, strongly support your consideration to introduce a direct flight from Pittsburgh to Amsterdam. We will all benefit from it. Thank you for considering our opinion, Postdoctoral community, Student community, Other associate researchers, visitor researchers Relatives of many of us