Why do airlines use the same flight # for multiple segments?
Aug 30, 2018 | 5:34 pm
#16
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: YVR
Programs: Erstwhile Accidental AC E35K
Posts: 3,194
There are a couple of different scenarios involving direct flights that even those who purport to know these things get confused:
From dictionary.com:
adjective
- Flight travels from origin to stop(s) to final destination on the same aircraft and flight number;
- Flight travels from origin to stop(s) to final destination with a change of aircraft at one or more of the stops, on the same flight number.
From dictionary.com:
adjective
- proceeding in a straight line or by the shortest course; straight; undeviating; not oblique: a direct route.
Definition of direct
1 a : proceeding from one point to another in time or space without deviation or interruption : straight
Hence, it is a gross perversion of the Queen's English to suggest that a flight from A to C with a stop at B is "direct". It isn't. (In these modern times some would call this use of the adjective "direct" a Trumpism.)
- a direct line
- the direct route
Hence, it is a gross perversion of the Queen's English to suggest that a flight from A to C with a stop at B is "direct". It isn't. (In these modern times some would call this use of the adjective "direct" a Trumpism.)
Aug 30, 2018 | 6:06 pm
#17
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,664
It goes back long before the airline industry even existed to the rail industry. Even the term change of gauge comes from them from when a train could only go so far as the next section of track was physically a diffrent size. Everyone would get off one train and move to a diffrent one. At the start of the aviation industry they had the same issues where certain planes could only fly parts of routes then you would need to switch planes to continue on. It was then used to create direct flights from cities without international service, aka Buffalo to London which was really a stop in JFK and a transfer to a new plane that was marketed as non-stop to London for NYC pax.
