Originally Posted by PJK
So if my flight CO 50 were to be heavily delayed in IAH, say for 4 hours... they can't let the metal waiting in EWR that's flying to FRA leave before the delayed flight arrives... even though the EWR-FRA metal is technically OK?
No, they can let the onward portion go.
Generally the domestic portion is assigned a bogus flight number with ATC, and the major segment gets the flight. So IAH-EWR is probably designated some like CO 9899 and EWR-FRA is CO 50.
So anyone buying a ticket on CO 50 IAH-FRA (1-stop) may misconnect to the second portion of the flight.
Really the use of flight numbers in this manner is a marketing tool to make the flight look like it's a non-stop or direct one when it really isnt. It's basically a bunch of crap.