Originally Posted by themicah
But mostly, I think it's just a holdover from the old pre-hub-and-spoke day, when the same equipment would usually continue on (which made "direct" flights preferable to "connecting" flights). Alas, now there's really no point except to mislead pax.
Actually I think the reason was that 'direct' flights were higher up the list on a travel agents screen than connecting flights. The theory being that when all fares were regulated and the same the first available flight would be chosen.
In some senses this still makes sense because if the airlines are having a competition for a destination and all have the same low fare a lot of travelers who do not care about earning FF miles (probably the majority) will just choose the first offering. Generally the non-stops will have a slight premimum so will not show up on the screen first but the directs will show up before the connects.