Surely you meant to write "non-stop flights."

Direct flights keep the same flight numbers and planes but stop at airports en-route while some passengers exit and others board or remain seated on the plane.

Travel Guides

Not entirely true. Continental's flight 90, for example, is a direct flight from LAX to TLV, with both a stopover AND an equipment change in EWR (from a 737-900ER to a 777-200ER). Direct flights in reality have no connection to whether or not the plane remains the same, as frequently they involve equipment change. The reason for keeping the same number has something to do with how the flights appear on searches and/or landing spots.

From the site I linked above:CO90 is one of those rare instances. On Southwest, for example, you can fly cross country on one plane with one flight number and make as many as three or four stops en-route.

Regardless, the OP was referring to non-stop flights when he wrote direct.

I'm not so sure how rare it is. CO has many flights to international destinations, but virtually all are routed through IAH or EWR. They have many direct flights that change equipment in the hub. And they're hardly the only airline. Unfortunately, this is becoming a more frequent practice

I have edited the original post to clarify the issue.

You are making a global generalization based upon anecdotal evidence from one U.S. based airline.

The common definition of a direct flight is:

On LH and LX, for some routen when flying in C and F, you do get a premium class kosher meal. LY no longer has a monopoly. But on other airlines,.... I flew recently with TG, and my KSML tasted horrible.

But your quote says that a direct flight does not involve an equipment change, and even if rare, that's not 100% accurate. Besides, it's not one airline. Google "does a direct flight involve change in aircraft" or variants, and you'll see it's becoming an all too common practice, much to the chagrin of pax (including the fact that you get fewer miles, because you get the total of A-C, not A-B + B-C). US does it, UA, AC, DL... I don't know about European airlines, but don't forget that UA/CO make the largest airline in the world, and they do it; DL is number 2 (and currently the single largest until CO and UA combine) and they do it...

I think the point is irrelevant though. It doesn't change the fact that it exists, and I think we can agree it's annoying and pointless. It's also not really connected to the thread anymore

I think you misunderstood. Many airlines will serve high quality KSMLs in F. But only on LY can Kosher pax get the F dining "experience," served course after course, directly from the warmers, not wrapped in a bunch of plastic or metal, poured wine...

Perhaps we can go back on topic and discuss the whole pricing thing which this thread is actually about?

I wrote "common" (emphasis added) definition, not absolute or exclusive definition.

Sorry, missed that *sheepish grin*

Interestingly, LY's price dropped to around $2,900.
Both prices were for R/T in W.

Also interesting (for some, maybe) is that the difference between S and W is $7...

Pretty common really that a full fare Economy (well almost full fare) would cost the same, or very often more than the cheapest and most restricted Business fare.

I believe that a Y fare is always more expensive on CO than a Z fare.

There are often fare anomalies. About 4.5 years ago there was a time when you could fly TLV-HKG on A class for less than the price of a D class ticket! Go work that one out! It turned out to be the result of a quiet fare war between BA and LY on that route.