Originally Posted by
24.05.2004
Agree with the definitions of non-stop and direct altho, at least in the late '70s-early '80s, there were a lot of "direct" flights from US-Europe which were same flight number but with "change of gauge". IIRC, those flights were denoted in the OAG as "CHG" for equipment. I always thought it was just a cheap marketing tool so the airline could put up a billboard saying: "Fly TW direct to London".
This was a longstanding practice, going back to propeller aircraft days, TWA being the principal, but by no means only, culprit of the approach. There were some bizarre combinations, such as in the 1960s a 707 Athens-Rome-JFK might continue with the same number as an L-749 Constellation JFK-Dayton-Indianapolis-St Louis. Quite what one flight might contribute to the other was a mystery. Eventually by the 1990s it was common to apply such flight numbers to combinations that were served nonstop by other carriers, Continental doing London-EWR and the number continuing EWR-MCO on a 737. This one eventually brought the practice to the attention of the UK Advertising Standards Authority, a quasi-government body, with evidence of not only not being a through flight but passengers being expected to walk between terminals just like any other connection, multiple broken connections, as the domestic aircraft would be sent off punctually, regardless of whether half the passengers were still queuing in immigration, or even more, the incoming aircraft was late and hadn't arrived yet (when, for ATC purposes only, the ongoing flight was assigned a different flight number to guard against two Flight xxx being in the air at the same time). Families who were seated together on one sector would be broken up on the next, without consideration. So the ASA, which of course only applies in the UK, did a formal banning of saying "direct", and it pretty much reduced after that, and could never be mentioned in the UK as "direct" any longer, even with a supplementary "change of gauge" footnote.