Direct flights -- Why? What about Mileage Credit?
 

Searching for award space on United.. I see a number of 'direct flights' with 'Time on ground - Change planes' listed. How is that not a 1-stopper?

'Direct' flights are not the same as non-stop flights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_flight

"A direct flight in the aviation industry is any flight between two points by an airline with no change in flight numbers, which may include a stop over at an intermediate point."

the same way southwest does. when i was doing SDC yesterday, .bomb was trying to offer me a two stop direct flight from xxx to yyy. no thanks.

The Island Hopper is a direct flight between HNL and GUM with only 5 stops on the way.

I thought that WN's "direct" flights are generally on the same aircraft (i.e. no change of gauge).

Hard to have a change of "gauge" when they only fly one airframe, 737's.:D (and yes, I know they have different variants of 737's)

To add only a little to other comments.

A Direct flight is sold as a single segment between origin and destination, despite changes of airplane(s), types or anything else. That can be important. On award travel DL LGA-GIG will count as one leg although you'll be on a 752 out of LGA and a 764 out of ATL. Normally that does work to consumer benefit but sometimes they do refuse that too.

There are a good number of long multisegement direct flights too, mostly holdovers from long-gone days (PanAm had flights #1 and #2, this is flight #1 itinerary from 1970's LAX-SFO-HND-HKG-BKK-DEL-KHI-(BEY or THR)-IST-FRA-LHR-JFK-PHL. Nobody since then has gone quite that far with direct flights. This one had no change of gauge, 747 throughout. UA ran #1 and #2 for some years with altered routing and downguaged equipment following their purchase of PanAm routes.

And you have to be pretty careful, because sometimes the SDC options for "direct flights" don't even show that there are plane changes, so one could select it thinking that it is a non-stop but end up having to switch multiple times just because United can't figure out how to use new numbers.

That they are. I took TUL-ATL once that was listed as a direct flight. It stopped in DAL and AUS on the way but I never got off the plane

The last time I will fly WN again..

I think the point was that on WN at least direct means "same plane", so you can stay onboard and generally won't miss a connection (though that's not guaranteed) -- other airlines (like UA) use the same flight number even when you must exit and connect to a completely different plane, which IMHO is just dishonest.

Side story -- one of our favorite family trips was a WN one-stop flight PIT-MDW-SMF. We landed at MDW early, and had a relaxing 45 minutes chatting with the FAs and the pilot on the mostly empty plane. The pilot invited my young kids to sit in the cockpit, which they loved. My son and I then decided to get off to go walk around the terminal a bit, and the GA took our names and old us to just be back 5 minutes before boarding would start, and she whisked us back on the plane first, no muss no fuss. Don't always like extra stops, but this time it was great.

It is not dishonest.
Direct- same flight number
Non-stop= without stops
Those are two definitions that have been clear and unambiguous since the 1950's. It is only during the last few years that people have been confused.
The larger the network the more direct flights they usually have. The more small airports served from a single large one, the more direct flights they will usually have.

I disagree completely with this. It may be clear and unambiguous to those in the industry and many frequent travelers, but I hear MANY occasional flyers and even frequent flyers use the terms interchangeably. In fact, I've noted the confusion at least since the early 90s, when I myself was confused about it.

I recall that the term "direct" was a carryover from the railroads. A direct routing may stop at numerous places enroute.

the airlines added that a plane change was also allowed on the same flight number. grrrrrrr

Sadly, many people think that direct = non-stop.

I don't have an issue with the non-stop vs direct terminology, when "direct" is used to mean the plane stops one or more times and you stay on it. It's the usage of "direct" to include changing planes that I find dishonest.

There's no functional benefit to the passenger for such a plane-changing "direct" flight over a connecting flight -- you have to get off one plane and find a different gate, wait in line to board again, the onward flight can (and often does) leave earlier than the inbound causing the same misconnects. In most cases, there are drawbacks for the passenger over a connecting itinerary -- counts as only one segment and miles may be shortchanged as AAA-CCC vs AAA-BBB-CCC, sometimes upgrades and seats are harder to deal with.

The airline benefits by faking search engines into showing the flight first; that's really all.

This brings up the eternal question, to which I've been seeking the answer: if you were to further SDC in the middle of that "direct" flight, to a flight with a different flight number, what mileage credit would you get?

With the exception of the island hopper, does UA still have direct flights where passengers can remain on board during the intermediate stop?