Purpose of "continuing flights"
 

Why do airlines have "continuing flights" -- AUS-DFW-COS, for example? They seem like a relic from the era before hub-and-spoke systems that do nothing but cause confusion. Wouldn't it be simpler for all concerned to just assign a different flight number to each segment?

Or am I missing something?

ive always wondered this too. Maybe just so people don't have to get off the plane at the connection point?

But then... there are some single flight numbers that go USA - Asia - Asia2, with a change of plane at Asia. :confused:

One reason is so they can be listed as a direct service (albeit not non-stop) and therefore appear higher in the flights queries than having 2 separate flight numbers. This topic has been discussed many times.

Good to know. Thanks for that.

Also known as semi-dishonest marketing for less savvy fliers. Perhaps they're also to cheat one out of miles/segments. For example, I used to take NW DCA-MSP-ABQ frequently, which was one flight number, but it was a change of planes in MSP! Seems to defeat the purpose. Of course, I only got one segment and slightly fewer miles than if they had credited DCA-MSP and MSP-ABQ.

That was actually my first thought. Realistically though, it hardly seems like it could reduce an airline's mileage liability enough to matter.

It reduces taxes, which makes the ticket look cheaper.

Gosh, never thought about tax issues---thanks :)

"Continuing flight numbers" are a US airline feature not found elsewhere in the world.

The greatest frauds are those where there is an actual change to a different type of aircraft at the intermediate point, which if the incoming aircraft is late arriving can get dispatched on time and all the "through" passengers get thrown out halfway along their supposed through trip. This used to be a regular feature of Pan Am and TWA in Europe in the 1980s, with one through flight number from a 747 across the Atlantic onto 727s operating to secondary points in Europe. The incoming transatlantic was late and the continuing flight number, often the only flight of the day, had left.

You can still find the equivalent happening in the US at major hubs nowadays.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but AC does this as well. YYZ-DEL (with a stop in ZRH) is a good international example, but there have been others. You only get miles for the direct, not the sum of the 2.

Dr. PITUK

This is different, this is just an intermediate stop, the same aircraft operates right through. Not two flights with quite different characteristics that have been given the same number to pretend they are a through flight when they are not.

TG673 KIX-HKT (Phuket) with a stop in BKK and change of aircraft.

Yes, I can imagine that this could happen. I wonder how that would be handled under the EU regulations... You've boarded flight XXX on time and flight XXX arrived on time -- so what are you complaining about? Why did you get off the aircraft in the middle of the route? :D

HTB.

It's confusing, to say the least. Seems like UA "continues" its flights a lot. Some UA domestic flights have 8xx or 9xx flight numbers, which are usually used for transpacific and transatlantic flights, respectively.

I remember flying UA 891 LAX-NRT and connecting to UA 853 NRT-TPE, both in C. Despite the different flight numbers, I flew on the same aircraft, which happened to be my namesake N117UA. It's even more confusing how UA keeps on renumbering the Asia-Asia2 flight numbers while keeping the USA-Asia flight numbers unchanged. For example, the flight number for the aforementioned NRT-TPE flight has changed from 853 to 891 and 801.

I figured that I must have been misunderstanding something :)

Thanks,

Dr. PITUK

"Continuing flight numbers" are a US airline feature not found elsewhere in the world"??

No, it does happen with other airlines in other parts of the world, mostly in Asia (outside of the US) and not in Europe.