Originally Posted by
indufan
Practically, that didn't work so well either as they would just change it to a different plane. There were some circumstances were it did work. I remember taking a TUS-PHX-ATL direct once and a majority of the plane actually stayed on.
Worked this way at Delta too. Usually cost you at least the 500-mile minimum and a segment, if you were chasing those.
As far as I can tell, other than on WN, these "direct" flights solely benefit the airline -- it lets them market more deceptively ("Look, we have a flight from Des Moines to London! *change of plane"). For the passengers, there are just downsides (issues with upgrades, not getting full mileage, etc). I've seen many cases where even supposed same-plane cases would find a replacement plane for the 2nd part of the flight if the 1st is late and the pax miss the non-connection anyway (they will use a ddifferent flight number for ATC if both are in the air at the same time).
Now, on WN those same-number flights can be nice, especially if you have a short leg followed by a long one. Through passengers can shift to the best seats at the stop for the long flight, and in many cases if the stop is long enough can get off the plane and reboard before anyone else. Done that PIT-MDW-SMF and it was a lot of fun as the pilots even invited my kids into the cockpit.