Continuing flight?
 

I was checking out the info on my upcoming departure and it surprised me to see my two legs are on the same plane - essentially a continuing flight to my final destination.

I've never had that happen before with a major carrier. I remeber it happened a lot with Southwest, and you could just hang out on the plane and thereby get the "good seats" with the cattle call boarding...

But what does UA do in this situation? A Southwest plane is at the airport for an absolute minimum amount of time, so staying on board wasn't a big deal. I remember it being like "if you get off to use the restroom, you might not get back on in time." In comparison, my 'layover' at IAH is 52 minutes. Assuming he plane arrives early (which according to the history it always does) i'd have plenty of time to wander off and come back.

It just strikes me as weird.. I never expected to follow a plane through a hub like IAH. So what's the policy? Am I booted off? Do I get lots of time to be chatty with the FA's?

I'm not sure about UA, but I was on SEA-PHX-ATL on US last month which was the same plane on both legs, and same flight number. We had the option of staying or getting off. We could also leave our carry on in the bins, they needed the floors clear for cleaning.

Those of us that did get off had to wait until boarding to get back on.

Unfortunately, you get booted off...

The other problem with these through flights is their upgrade scheme. There is a glitch in the upgrade process. If you're not upgraded on the first leg of a through flight, you are taken off the upgrade list for the second flight. This affected me from an AUS-DEN-SAN flight a couple of months ago. I was aware it had happened, and mentioned it to the people in the United Club, and a red coat at the gate. A passenger of lesser status was upgraded ahead of me. The United personnel said they were aware of this glitch but powerless to fix it. I never heard back as to why.

UA is doing a lot of continuing flights, some on logical routes and others not, to ration flight numbers. Mainline only has about 1500 flight numbers for 4k flights.

Well, that's just it - it's not the same flight number. It's the same plane though, according to the info.

If it's a different flight number, then you need to get off and reboard.

If you're curious, it's flight 269 and becomes 416 at IAH.

Not sure what the logic is there.

The logic is that a plane that lands eventually takes off again for somewhere. You just happen to align with the city pairs that the plane is planned for.

Makes sense to me.

So, why not just increase the number of flight numbers? Maybe Shares can only handle 1500 flight numbers :p. Is there some sort of FAA registration they need for additional flight numbers?

They should start rationalizing the flight numbers to follow planes on their routes (eg DEN-MCI-ORD should have one flight number as a direct flight) instead of having "direct" flights for marketing purposes. I'm sure they have a lot of Hub-to-spoke-to-other-hub routes that could be consolidated.

I think we're getting off-topic on this one. The OP's question was about the same plane on two legs, not "direct flights".

It's a parallel topic. To get on my favorite hobby horse, I think USDOT should ban direct flight numbers unless it's the same plane on all legs and one is allowed to remain on the aircraft during any stop. This is well within DOT's purview to ensure clean marketing practices.

Fair enough. I don't think I agree with being allowed to remain - that is just odd, especially if a plane needs to be cleaned.

The Mileage Runner's Friend
 

Same equipment = basically a "buttetproof connection"

I agree with GoAmtrak because most of us come on FT to learn things, and two different planes with the same flight number causing a change of aircraft at connecting airports is b.s., especially when the ticket is sold as a direct flight.

What's the problem with a discussion of getting from point A to point B without needing to take a hike in between?

Because the OP's situation was "one plane, two flight numbers", not the topic you and GoAmtrak are trying to push across. Not sure how you could
agree with GoAmtrak if you actually read through this thread.

"Well, that's just it - it's not the same flight number. It's the same plane though, according to the info".

And we already have a "direct flight" thread.

And could very easily change before you take these flights. "Where is my plane coming from" changes a lot due to irrops, mx needs, etc.

I think they should require that all people can make their "connections" should airlines choose to market this way.

I don't think that most people realize that they can book a "direct" flight and still misconnect to it.

Anyhow, such legislation would stop this practice quickly.


Really. ;)

I suspect the limitation is the GDSs only allow 4 digits for flight number, so there's only 9999 flight numbers available to use.

4k for OAL codeshares, nearly 4k for express, a few hundred for charters, a few hundred for mx and test flights, some reposiitoning, and you're down to the ~1650 used by mainline.

I often have taken 1433, which some days starts in MGA-IAH-SFO. Change of gauge at IAH (from 73W to 738-9). I have had a hell of a time getting CO to split the flight into 2 segments, 1) for the mileage, 2) for upgrade reasons. It always costs me an additional $5.50 in taxes.

OP -- I'm gonna guess you're under 30 years old, right?

Not to sound like an old-timer, but gosh, this used to be VERY commonplace on virtually all domestic carriers. Heck, I remember taking the ORD-PVD-PWM flight many a time and didn't think twice about it. Just sat on the plane with the other 60 or so pax while the PVD pax deplaned. It's just how it used to be.

Regional carriers, like Piedmont, could have flights with up to a dozen legs and stage lengths of just 15 minutes. Made for a wild day, but it was a whole lot more fun back then than it is now.

I flew UA201 from SFO to GUM via HNL in September. Same flight #, same metal. But we were required to get off the airplane will all carry-ons when landed at HNL.

Not true - plenty of times if a flight is delayed getting in to the airport enough and a spare is available, they'll send the spare off for an on-time arrival and strand connecting pax.

Upgrade impossible
 

A couple of months ago I was on UA 860 GIG-GRU-IAD, a one-stop direct flight with the same plane and same flight number. The last day or two of the trip leading up to boarding in GIG was a mess, so I felt lucky to make the flight -- not much opportunity to fine tune the arrangements. I flew in Y on a W fare, and during the 2+ plus hours between the segments at GRU, I verified there were available C seats. I tried to upgrade with a GPU but was told that there was no way the system would allow it because I was a "transit passenger," having joined the flight in GIG. The flight went out with 8 empty C seats.

So it was basically like a flying Greyhound, stopping in every city along the way?

Oof. I wonder whether a really dedicated agent might have been able to alter your record to split up your flights (adding two UA860 segments instead of just one).

Maybe this has to be done before the first leg of the trip started?

In my SFO/HNL/GUM on UA201 in September, the original booking showed as one segment (SFO/GUM) only. I called 1k desk. A nice agent helped to split it into 2. Upgrade for the first leg was successful but not for the 2nd so I ended sitting in F first then moved to Y later.