I am interested in flying on NW from IAD to MKE. Though this is supposed to be a nonstop flight, I have heard that this flight may sometimes make an unscheduled stop in Detroit when loads are light. Can anyone confirm if this is true? Also, is there anyway to check how frequently this occurs? Does the FAA or other organization keep track of these types of changes?

Thanks!

I think probably every trip from IAD to MKE makes a stop in DTW or MSP.

NW has a nonstop between MKE-DCA and will be adding BWI but so far no IAD.

Everything from IAD goes through DTW or MSP.

DCA has a direct flight to MKE, and will soon go to 2 direct flights (CRJ) and a one-stop (DC-9) through DTW.

Has the IAD-AMS D10 been dropped?

IT switched to a KLM jet months ago. Maybe even a year ago. But you are correct in that there is 1 INTL flight that does not generally go through DTW or MSP. I think the topic is to MKE though not to AMS.

There have been several direct flights from MKE to non-hub destinations but IAD is not one of them yet.

I think the poster's confusion may be with the DCA-MKE flights (not IAD).

There are two "direct" flights a day from DCA to MKE on NW: 637 and 229, but only 637 is nonstop.

NW229 is "direct" from DCA to MKE, but stops for an hour and twenty minutes in DTW, and switches planes and crews.

Gotta love the semantic game the airlines play with "direct" vs. "nonstop."

It's amazing that they get away with this nonsense. I'd guess that 95% of non-flyertalkers have no clue that a "direct" flight can make multiple scheduled stops and equipment changes (and is almost never actually nonstop).

Nor do they know that they could misconnect to their continuing flight.

Which is one of the games WN LUVs to play! Many of their flights are "direct," but make about 5 stops along the way. I had a pax ask me about travelling BWI-RNO. Quoted the fare to her and the schedule (thru MSP). Pax said fare was the same as WN but that they had a "direct" flight. When I asked her if the flight was direct or non-stop, she was silent for a minte and then asked what the difference was. When I explained to her the difference, she said, "Well, I think that flight is non-stop." I hated having to break the news to her that said flight stops in JAN, HOU, and PHX before reaching RNO. (When I worked for the largest airline in the world, that WN flight left from the gate across from ours, after it arrived from PVD) She then said she thought it was odd that it took so long to get there!

As you all know, non-stop means just that. Point A to Point B with nothing in the middle. Direct goes from Point A to Point B, but can stop at Point C, Point D, Point Q, and Point X before getting there.

Since half of the "direct" flights these days have an aircraft change, I wonder what the point is? (Maybe they are running out of flight numbers?)

I can think of a couple reasons airlines do it:

1. They can convince many gullible passengers to choose their "direct" over another airline's "connecting" flight when pax aren't loyal to a particular airline.
2. They can advertise that they serve more places from a given airport. So NW serves LAX, PHX, and SFO from LGA (with "direct" flights).
3. I'm pretty sure they don't have to give as many frequent flyer miles for "direct" flights that take roundabout routings. A "direct" flight from LGA to PVG (via DTW and NRT), for example, might only earn the nonstop mileage from LGA to PVG, even though the actual flown mileage is more. I'm not sure about this one, though.

But mostly, I think it's just a holdover from the old pre-hub-and-spoke day, when the same equipment would usually continue on (which made "direct" flights preferable to "connecting" flights). Alas, now there's really no point except to mislead pax.

Actually I think the reason was that 'direct' flights were higher up the list on a travel agents screen than connecting flights. The theory being that when all fares were regulated and the same the first available flight would be chosen.

In some senses this still makes sense because if the airlines are having a competition for a destination and all have the same low fare a lot of travelers who do not care about earning FF miles (probably the majority) will just choose the first offering. Generally the non-stops will have a slight premimum so will not show up on the screen first but the directs will show up before the connects.

Well, I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I would no think that NW would actually decide to make a create a flight sfo-msp-mke to save a few miles. You are probably right about the impression that it gives: "Lots of destinations out of mke..."

But also, under current rules, codeshares are limited in numbers, especially with DL. Instead of having two code shares flight, making it a one flight with a stop over gives them more flexibilty for the code share aggrements.