Funny CO.com Glitch
 

Searching for flights to PVG next January and came up with this gem:

Flight CO87
Thu., Jan. 14, 2010 at 7:30 a.m.
Equipment - Boeing 737-700
Cleveland, OH (CLE) to Shanghai, People's Republic of China (PVG - Pu Dong)
Class: Economy (Y)

Not a cheap flight and imagine there are a bunch of refueling stops on a 737 from CLE to PVG. . . .

:p

It all becomes clear
 

when you read the footnote, but funny nevertheless

1 Stop. Time on the ground in New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty) is 2 hours 6 minutes. Change Planes. Equipment changes in New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty) to a Boeing 777-200ER.

Yeah, these are a lame attempt to confuse consumers into thinking that CO actually has CLE - PVG service. I think they call them direct flights or something. There are several airlines that do this if memory serves, but it's still lame. I suppose if anything it is an exercise in reminding yourself to always read the fine print. :-:

Ahhh..the glory of the "Direct" flight. Gotta love it.

Don't get me started on this. Not only does it confuse the public, but it also confuses CO computers.

I took this exact flight back in Sept and because the computer sees the flight as "direct" I was sitting in the back (CLE-EWR) of the bus while seats in F went empty. I actually had even asked an agent to manually put me on the upgrade standby-list but then somehow right before boarding I disappeared off it again.

I couldn't be bothered to spend any more time griping about it to the GA though since its such a short flight anyway.

There were a few other annoyances also having to do with the computer not interpreting the 2 segments right... but I forgot the details.
What a giant PITA these flights are.

Inability to assign a seat online for both segments.
Credit only for the point-to-point mileage rather than the actual routing flown.

Don't these flights also earn fewer miles than when the same itinerary is constructed as two separate flights?


Edited to add: sbm12 beat me to it.

Yeah, CO has a "direct" flight to LHR from MSY too with an equipment change in IAH.

Of course they credited the mileage from MSY-LHR versus MSY-IAH-LHR despite the additional routing.

(woops! see sbm12 mentioned it already--had the tab open in Firefox and came back to the new post)

Don't forget about the "direct" CO6 service NRT-SAT! :rolleyes:

CO6 is "direct" from GUM-SAT, too.

HA! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

CO 6/7 SAT-GUM is the worst "direct" flight that I know of. With a 15% hit on miles earned and three flights on three different aircraft types and three different service standards it truly epitomizes the idiocy of a direct flight.

CO 50/51 FRA-EZE used to be the winner in terms of a mileage hit with a whopping 45% "discount" on actual flown mileage. :eek: