hotturnip

Not that simple. You can see that they DO offer one such flight from ATL. And they DON'T offer it from some likely destinations (the IAD-SEA mentioned above). I think geography plays more of a role than you might think. It's a sort of combination of the two things, really. They can't profitably offer premium service on EVERYTHING, so they focus on the longer routes.

ATOBTTR

aWASFlyer

IAD is a co-terminal of BWI and DCA. Further, IAD is farther east than RDU. I do not think IAD should be considered a borderline city if you consider RDU DCA and BWI transcontinental airports.

MSPeconomist

ATOBTTR

I also agree that geography and distance play more of a role than many on here give it credit for. It's not the only factor but it IS certainly a factor and this is driven by market factors. There is a market that is willing to pay for a premium product on NYC/LAX-SFO and part of the reason they are willing to do so is the length of the flight (~2500 miles and >6 hours going Westbound). Other routes out of NYC (and other business hubs) may have very high numbers in business traffic but the route is short enough that the market would not pay for flat seats or much higher levels of service. For example, LGA-DCA or LGA-ORD. While this route is a bit of an exception on service (at least last time I checked, on this route you'll get a meal in F on LGA-ORD during meal times) even some of the most liberal travel policies probably wouldn't support paying the fare premium that would accompany a lie-flat seat on LGA-ORD.

SJC ORD LDR

Depends on your definition of Transcon. If you are looking for special, upgraded service on these flights out of ATL, then the answer is NO. If you are thinking of distance, then the answer is maybe. SFO - ATL isn't that much father than SFO - DTW and most people would consider SFO - DTW a mid-con since you are in the middle of the continent as opposed to the east coast.

While ATL is in Georgia, which is on the east coast, it's still a 5 hour drive or a 235 mile flight to the coast. ATL is closer to the Central Time Zone border than the Atlantic Ocean.

azepine00

80% rule - if you cross 80%+ of the continent its a transcon imo.. ymmv

SJC ORD LDR

By that rule, there is no flight out of ATL that goes to the lower 48 that is a transcon.

TuxTom

Ultimately, how you as a passenger defines transcon doesn't really mean anything. Much like the debate on what people consider to be 'long-haul', everyone can have their own opinion. The difference only matters when it comes to what routes the airline determines receives dedicated special service. For example, this time of year DL offers a once weekly flight between ATL-RNO on Saturdays. This flight is longer than ATL-LAX, but you never come close to the ocean. I wouldn't consider that a transcon and DL obviously doesn't due to the lack a premium market, but it's still 2k miles.

ATOBTTR

My view is if I've gone from Eastern Time to Pacific Time (or vise versa), I've "flown across the country". There's two pretty good size mountain ranges in our country and if you've crossed both of them (or drew an imaginary line south from the southern tip of the Appalachians to the Gulf Coast) and crossed both mountain ranges, I would say you've crossed the country in that respect too. As you say, YMMV and as I noted above in my previous post, everyone will have a different opinion. I consider ATL-LAX a transcon. Others gripe at that. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter though. It's all opinion we'd have about as much settling the debate over whether Coca-Cola or Pepsi is better (of course, Coca-Cola is far superior. )

james318

And DTW is actually (just slightly) further east than ATL.

jrl767

james318

In more than one language!

cmx

A good example is here in SAN where Delta only operates D1 once a day back and forth to JFK on the flight that competes directly with the jetBlue Mint plane--the midday SAN-JFK and morning JFK-SAN.