Originally Posted by
Donna49
Perhaps it is just me, but the idea of landing someplace and not getting off seems strange these days. I do recall the days of a "through flight", but it has been years since I landed and did not have to get off and change planes.
Southwest still does a lot of through flights. At the other airlines, a couple of factors have reduced the number of through flights:
1. With $80+ oil, you must have passengers boarding between all cities on a through flight. In other words, in 1990, AS flew SEA-PHX-TUS. With expensive oil, it no longer makes sense to add the expensive PHX-TUS leg because there are virtually no originating passengers out of PHX to go to TUS. With cheap oil, this wasn't a concern.
2. Airlines no longer rely on travel agents to book the majority of their travel. Through flights used to show up near the top of the travel agents' displays and, thus, were more likely to be sold. With the advent of online booking, it no longer really matters. In addition, back in the day, my one-stop flights from SEA-BOS via ORD would often become connecting flights. More often than not, you would get the dreaded announcement upon arrival in ORD, "For those of you continuing on flight 566 to BOS, there will be a plane change. We will be arriving at gate A1 and your new aircraft will be departing from gate Z99."
