Interesting Routing
 

We see such routing all the time on WN.
Why is it so?
Software unable to exclude such stupidity?

Flight details (4 stops, includes 1 plane change)

• #2294
  • Depart: Albuquerque, NM (ABQ)6:00 AM
  • Arrive: Las Vegas, NV (LAS)6:30 AM
  1st stop, no plane change0h 35m layover
  
• #2294
  • Depart: Las Vegas, NV (LAS)7:05 AM
  • Arrive: Sacramento, CA (SMF)8:35 AM
  2nd stop, change planes 1h 0m layover
  
• #2549
  • Depart: Sacramento, CA (SMF)9:35 AM
  • Arrive: St. Louis, MO (STL)3:10 PM
  3rd stop, no plane change0h 50m layover
  
• #2549
  • Depart: St. Louis, MO (STL)4:00 PM
  • Arrive: Orlando, FL (MCO)7:20 PM
  4th stop, no plane change0h 50m layover
  
• #2549
  • Depart: Orlando, FL (MCO)8:10 PM
  • Arrive: Philadelphia, PA (PHL)10:35 PM

Going to New Mexico to PA via stopping in BOTH CA and FL (nearly 15 hours trip - You can fly to Hong Kong for that much time)

And.. it shows lowest fare of about 579 USD!!
(cheaper fares are "sold out")

Faster than walking!

Long story short WN has ancient IT. Basically, because they run 3 separate schedules (M-F, Sat, Sun) they need to use 3 completely separate sets of flight numbers for each. (i.e. you can't run flight 728 M-F and Sat at different times or on different routes like the other guys do). So... they have to attach the same flight numbers to as many flights as possible, hence why one flight number has 4 stops. This is also why the flight numbers are quickly approaching the high 6000s.

Of course nobody wants to take that routing, hence the ridiculous fare... but because of the way the IT works it sees it as one flight and is willing to sell it to you

Where's the beef? Don't like the option, don't book it.

I thought they recently upgraded to Amadeus Altea, which is the same system that many top airlines like TG and SQ use.

Um... when they're stupid, yes.

Reservation system quirks discussion has been fairly common subject on FT (not just for WN)

Kindly ignore if found not of interest.

Choosing a random date a couple weeks from now, I look and see there are five one-stop flights and several 2-stops listed for that date, ABQ-PHL. Call me crazy, but I probably could find one of those which suits my needs OK without going to California and Florida on the same itinerary.

Sorry, I couldn't control the urge to post.

Note also that on the days the 4-stop itinerary exists, one can choose a better alternative of connecting to a nonstop LAS-PHL flight at Las Vegas instead of the LAS-SMF-STL-MCO-PHL routing outlined in the original post. But that one involves a 2+ hour layover at Las Vegas; maybe some people don't want that?

WN just upgraded to a new reservations system. They do have scheduling flexibility now to have flights change by day of week. Just check the schedules out of most cities now -- you will see that the restrictions no longer apply.

That said, it does appear that their "connection builder" software needs some help. But, if you tighten the criteria, then you allow fewer legal connections. So, it's probably better for all of us to have a few "strange" connections and direct flights. I once booked a ooe-stop flight from PVD to PHX and the stop was at MCO!!! However, the price and the overall flight time were reasonable, so I took it.

Boggles my mind that they system will spit out options like this yet you can not "build" your own routing.

I ave often found segments that work better than what is available but can not book as one flight.

Many years ago, EasySaabre on Compuserve (see, I told you it was many years ago) would offer UA 1 for LAX-JFK as a three stop. Of course, UA1 and UA2 were the round-the world flights, so the routing was LAX-HKG-DEL-LHR-JFK.

Sadly, it wouldn't price out in F to be the same as UA 2 LAX-JFK nonstop....

Because Southwest refuses to go hub and spoke like the other carriers, and thus goes point-to-point-to-point-to-point, not to provide service from the first point to the last point, but stmply to use the plane efficiently for a number of separately-needed point-to-point flights.

They don't necessarily fly enough between any of those (mostly) secondary cities to be able to dedicate a plane to flying and back and forth on any shorter "more logical" subset of these routes.

I'm not sure easily they can solve this without going to something closer to a hub-and-spoke model. But then wouldn't likely have flights like Sacramento to St Louis, etc, because probably neither one of those cities would be a hub for Southwest.

If you want a hub-and-spoke airline, fly a hub-and-spoke airline, instead of flying Southwest.

Or if you want to fly Southwest efficiently, ignore where their planes go throughout the day and just book the most time-efficient connection (if there is no nonstop). Don't look for "direct" flights, this is what "direct" flights are on Southwest.

There's probably no person that actually flies this routing the whole day, only the plane itself does. No passengers choose that routing, the crew times out so they have to change crews along the way, etc. It's just to keep the plane in use all day, that's it.