hbtr

Just speculation, but it could just be a marketing tactic - makes it look like more destinations from XYZ. If you look on the terminal monitors you will see all of these "direct" destinations.

I suppose that even if you have to change planes (which seems counter to the concept), it's still a little better than a non-direct connection; the "connection" will be shorter than a normal connection, and if you arrive late there's much less risk that you would miss the connection.

Never done one of these on AA so this is all speculation, but it's what I have experienced on some other airlines.

sbagdon

Believe DL has (or had) a LHR-DTW-LAX flight with a single flight number that was an A330 for the first segment, and an A320 for the second (or some other substantial change such as that). If you paid to be in J, that's a real downgrade in aircraft.

Many stories of NW having 1-stop single flight-number flights through DTW that had change in gates (and even aircraft). Seem to remember there were some FL->CA flights that would have their mileage almost halved, by not having a "true" connection.

Xero

I would say it's nothing more than marketing. SFO is a great example of this. Right on the departure board, they make it seem as if they have nonstop flights to DCA, BOS, and BZE.

However, that does not mean that it's one plane. Your direct flight can have multiple aircraft and flight crow, and it is possible you can miss your "connection" even if you were on a direct flight.

Others here have wrote about the disadvantages of direct flights (less miles). The only advantage I see is that for taxes, it is only collected as one segment, so you might save around $11.

rayikes

Not sure if anyone mentioned this yet, but AA allows you to split up the flights so that you don't have to sit in the same seat and/or your upgrade has a better chance of clearing (either for free or otherwise).

AA has split the flights and reissued the ticket for me a couple times if the original booking inventory is available on both flight segments. The reissued ticket will allow you to select seats and submit upgrade requests for each segment of the flight.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

On some (and maybe all) computerized reservation systems, "direct" flights show up higher on the display than connecting flights. The thinking is that this will result in more bookings of the "direct" flight.

paytonc

An up-to-date way of finding direct flight destinations -- a slow interface, but it saves you from having to sort through a list -- is to use the Where We Fly map on AA.com. You'll be able to find all AA airports near you, plus the non-stop and direct routes from those airports, and even sort them by total distance so you'll know how many Avios you'll need.

As I remember it, GDSes display non-stop routings first, then direct routings, and finally connecting routings, so a direct routing would have a marketing advantage over usual connections.

In the codeshare era, an airline only operates 10-15% of the flights in its schedule (e.g., flights 1-999, with flights 1000-2999 on regionals and 3000-8999 on partners). An airline squeezed for flight numbers might seek to economize by assigning multiple flights the same flight number. The UACO merger has resulted in some three-segment direct flights, and plenty of "direct" regional flights between two utterly random points where there could not possibly be any marketing advantage (e.g., Del Rio to Waco, Guanajuato to Omaha, Casper to Moline). But hey, it's all in the service of a fiction that they "fly" from LHR to 40+ cities.

nbevan

But if they are in one booking but not combined, does one then get the miles for each segment?

paytonc

An important caveat about this: a "direct" flight from A-B-C may return as C-B-D, and D may be nowhere near A. When using the flight map, be sure to check destinations from both the outbound and return airports.

HJsimpson

In the latest AA schedule (Dec 7 2012), most "DIRECT/1-stop" flights are gone. All are broken into each segment. I was looking at some midwest flights whihc used to be awesome redemptions for Avios at 4500 a piece. No MORE
Are there any one world partners that would market any AA codeshares as direct fllights?
I think this ship has sailed.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

I doubt that you can use Avios to book flights operated by AA as a codeshare with a partner's flight number.

malcolmkettering

Aa922: Mia => vvi => vvi

(it keeps changing my post to sentence case...sorry)

malcolmkettering

Anyone else remember back in the 90's when the printed AA schedule had that whole bank of Flight No. 2XXX and they were all just marketing flights? They were all single flight number flights that had a connection and equip. change. For example, AA27XX SFO-GLA was really AAXXX SFO-ORD and AA52 ORD-GLA. Those had to have been created for some travel agent d/b to 'virtually' increase AA's available non-stops.

AA_EXP09

Try again.
Just have one lower case letter and the rest should be fine.
FT does that automatically TO AVOID PEOPLE POSTING LIKE THIS.

FWAAA

Sure, back in the olden days, when placement on the travel agents' gds screens was key, one-stop direct flights would show up higher on the screen than connections. They definitely wanted to be on the first page and not several screens away. For a while, DFW-LHR was flight 86 but stopped at ORD as DFW was not an allowable LHR gateway under Bermuda II.

imagineertobe

Yep, I just noticed this. I wonder what made them do it. Complaints from folks about getting fewer miles than flown? BA trying to zap more Avios from people?