notquiteaff

UA used to do that, too. Maybe still today. I often flew SFO-FRA, which had the same flight number as a SAN-SFO flight (on a much smaller plane) that connected to the FRA flight (just like dozens of others who didn’t share the flight number). And vice versa. And the onboard announcements included something like “Welcome to our flight to San Francisco with continuing service to San Diego”.

Basically, it was just marketing (hey, San Diegans, we now have a “direct” flight to Frankfurt for you)… with the negative side effect of reduced earnings compared to a connection with flight number change.

I’d like to think the passenger confusion and complaints cost them more money than the actual savings.