Originally Posted by
jmastron
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.
True - I said hypothetically because a plane swap is always possible, and was thinking more in the context of shorter delays (30-90 minutes) where it isn't long enough for DL ops to pull the trigger on a plane swap, but you'd otherwise be left trying to make a very tight connection from ex. ATL concourse T -> F if it weren't a same plane/same flight number itinerary. For the record, I've also seen WN "stub" heavily delayed thru flights somewhere along the route and reaccom those thru pax on other flights, which would eliminate the benefit there as well.
I'd also add that given my luck with DL IRROPS, booking myself on a Direct flight would be the one way to guarantee the first leg is delayed and they find a new plane and crew to operate the second leg. Still waiting on them to work that magic in my favor
