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Direct or nonstop flight? You tell me!

Southwest Airlines recently painted a 737 based on the Colorado state flag.

Is that Southwest flight to Denver direct or nonstop? (Photo: Southwest Airlines)

Now that we are in peak summer travel season and everyone is flying somewhere, it’s a good time to point out the difference between nonstop and direct flights. Why? Because so many people get it wrong.

Would you choose a “nonstop” or a “direct” flight between Atlanta and San Francisco? What about a “connecting” flight?

Your choice could have a big impact on the price, length and comfort of your trip.

I’m constantly amazed at how many frequent travelers, airlines, agents and even fellow travel writers tend to think that “direct” and “nonstop” are interchangeable terms. They are not. (At least in the U.S.)

If you are wondering which type of flight is best for you, consider these definitions:

Nonstop:

A nonstop flight is just what is says: a single flight between two airports with no stops. Business travelers prefer nonstop flights because they are the fastest. Unfortunately they are frequently the most expensive.

Direct:

While a direct flight might sound like a nonstop flight, it’s not. A direct flight makes at least one intermediate stop along the way to its final destination, but has only one flight number.

For example, if you choose a direct flight between Atlanta and San Francisco you’d fly on one plane the whole way to SFO. But that plane would make a stop in, say, Dallas, or Denver, where it would drop off and pick up more passengers, like a bus. Due to these stops, direct flights can add an hour or more to your total travel time.

I recently took a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Phoenix for a meeting. My flight from Oakland to Phoenix was a nonstop. However, the plane continued on to St Louis. The passengers who stayed on the plane in Phoenix and continued flying to St Louis on the second leg were on a direct flight.

Often, direct flights are less expensive than nonstop flights– but not always. If you have a choice between a direct or a nonstop and the price is the same, take the nonstop!

Connecting:

A connecting flight will take at least two different planes with two different flight numbers to reach your final destination.

For example, a connecting flight from Los Angeles to New York would mean first flying from LAX to Dallas/Ft Worth where you would get off the plane. At DFW you’d board another plane (with another flight number) for the flight to New York.

Connecting flights are almost always less expensive than nonstop flights, but they are not always the best option for travelers who place a premium on time.

Why? First, when you take off and land, you double your chances of encountering delays due to weather or air traffic control. Connecting flights can also take significantly longer than direct or nonstop flights due to long layovers.

Also, you’ll have to bring your carryon bags on and off the plane multiple times in each direction. Connections often mean landing in one terminal, then having to take a train or a long walk to another.

For these reasons, connecting flights are always the least desirable in terms of convenience… but likely the most desirable in terms of price.

What type of flight will you be taking next time? Nonstop, direct or connecting? If you get it wrong, I’ll cringe!

–Chris McGinnis

NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: Avoiding long customs & immigration lines  + Fingerprint as boarding pass? + Hotel rate shocker  + More!


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Comments

  1. No one has mentioned change of equipment “direct” flights… where the flight number stays the same at a stop but the equipment does not. These are connecting flights pretending to be direct flights.

  2. Do they have more lost luggage or maintenance issues than any major US carrier? I’ve had way fewer problems with WN (Southwest) than I have had with United, AA, or DL. Not to mention they only fly 737s, so no regional jets or changes in equipment that bump people off planes. They have zero change fees and zero cancellation fees, and have free checked bags, so it offers immensely more flexibility (I can book two different flights at different times and just cancel the one I don’t need, or book to lock in a price, and change it if the price goes down to get a better deal). I actually usually look at it the opposite as you, I’ll often pay a little extra to fly SW over coach in a United RJ. Plus they often fly to smaller airports, so I can do things like fly from OAK to BUR instead of SFO to LAX, and the small airports are much faster and easier to get through.

    I also find the Southwest method of lining up where you have a specific number much better than fighting through a mob of people all waiting for their group to be called and getting in the way of those of us in earlier groups.

    Have you ever actually flown on Southwest? You seem to be describing something more like EasyJet in your fears.

  3. So just jump to poor maintenance? They indeed probably spend less than others, since they operate only 737’s. And ValuJet? That’s like blaming Sears for a crappy shopping experience at K-Mart 20+ years ago.

  4. Mmmm, yeah. I found out the hard way ages ago. I booked a direct flight to St. Louis from the Bay Area. It was Feb so I bundled up pretty decently. Aaaand, the airline stopped in Phoenix for an hour. Aaaand we stayed in the plane on the tarmac.

    I would rethink my decision to go non-stop all the time, however. I’m not sure when cross country flights got longer (SFO->EWR), but I wouldn’t mind an hour intermission. I seem to have a duration limit for domestic flights right around 5 hr. We go to 6 and I get claustrophobic, squirmy and really tired.

  5. A few reasons: 1) They often offer the best price including 2 checked bags. 2) When my preschooler developed an ear infection a day before we were set to fly, they allowed me to change my reservation without a fee. 3) I’d rather fly than drive. 4) Queuing for a seat on a plane is not so different than queuing for other purposes. Everything is relative. I can see why this airline might not be the first choice of business travelers or those who prefer not to be on a plane with families, but since I’ve become a parent, Southwest has very much earned my loyalty.

  6. Thanks, Daryl… usage of “direct” when they mean nonstop is a lot more common outside the US– so I usually give non-US residents a pass 🙂 — chris

  7. And, Jason, if you would check your history, there has been one incident resulting in a fatality: “On December 8, 2005, the airplane slid off a runway at Chicago-Midway while landing in a snowstorm and crashed into automobile traffic, killing six-year-old Joshua Woods. This is the only accident involving Southwest Airlines to result in a fatality.” And don’t forget the ValueJet/AirTran crash in the Everglades years back. They are now owned by SW and I did fly them a few times in the past (+20 years ago) and I can tell you, they were REALLY bad…

  8. If their fares are cheap enough to entice people to fly with them given the negatives (fighting for seats, lost luggage, etc.), they have to be cutting costs somewhere; it just stands to reason…

  9. Why on earth would you think they have poor maintenance? Southwest has never had a fatal accident in it’s entire history.

  10. Your descriptions of nonstop, direct, and connecting flights are spot on. I few years ago the confusion of nonstop and direct began to creep in travel jargon. San Antonio is small market and nonstops are in short supply. Thanks to more not stops to big hubs and long reach of 787, 777, A380, and 747 on long hops we can make more connecting, one stop flights to Sydney, Dehli, Beijing, Istanbul, etc; delightful! An old boss in LA once accused me of having mistresses in Dallas and El Paso. To get to my customers in Albuquerque I had to fly direct or connect in one of those two cities. He was spoiled by LAX, where you can fly almost anywhere nonstop. The concept of connecting and direct was beyond his limited management skills. FYI – Southwest isn’t so bad if you are used to small market service. It beats driving or using the phone.

  11. I’m still trying to understand why anyone would fly Southwest. It sounds like a nightmare, fighting for a seat, lost luggage, most likely poor maintenance, etc. How much cheaper can it be than flying a top tier airline? Delta is bad enough, I can’t image going down from there….

  12. Where do you look for ticket prices? On both Delta and United’s websites, every flight I look up, has the non-stops as lower or the same as any flight that is direct or connecting through another city. Your argument that non-stops “almost always” are more expensive doesn’t even make sense commercially. It costs airlines money to land and turn a plane.

  13. Doesn’t matter what airline, a connecting flight doubles your chances of having problems, especaily with luggage. All it talkes is one delay, one problem and your screwed for days to come. With airlines running 90% capacity, if something happens to one flight the odds on getting the next is terrible. Add in if it’s a weather problem, the airlines don’t owe you anything other than trying to get you to your destination sometime in the same year.
    Avoid at all costs those transfers. I am going Washington D.C. to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks, no non-stops to Milwaukee so I am going to Chicago and take the two hour bus trip to Milwaukee, on my return taking the train down.
    Safer having your luggage instead of being at the mercy of the airlines.

  14. One of my favorite topics. Actually your definition of direct is not quite right. All that matters is a consistent flight number. I have been on many “direct” flights – especially on Delta – that had a change of aircraft, but amazingly, are still direct flights. It’s really, really annoying that airlines are allowed to do this, but no matter what happens 99% of people still continue to assume direct = nonstop.

  15. Perfect timing for this article as just tonight I came across “direct” being used
    incorrectly for “nonstop” in an article in the “Global Atlanta” e-newsletter – The article’s subject was about the Indian community wanting Delta to reinstate the ATL-BOM nonstop…though when the article quotes India’s Atlanta based Regional Consul-General, he said… “Whoever has come to meet me has been
    telling me you must do what you can to convince Delta to restart the direct flight.” Sounds like even the high-up government officials don’t even know the difference between the two terms.

  16. Before I traveled full time for work (and thus understood the nuances) I made the mistake of taking a “direct” flight from LAX to PVD (Providence, Rhode Island) on Southwest. This was 1 month after 9/11. This wonderful (sarcasm) direct flight ended up stopping in LAS, KCI, MDW, BWI and then PVD. It was definitely a direct flight (never changed airplanes) and due to the restrictions in place, we never got off the plan for the entire 14 hour day. I guess I learned the hard way what “direct” meant…. hahahahaha

  17. Yeah, every direct flight on Southwest I’ve been on you can stay on the plane, which also means you get to move to a better seat at the stop. if there aren’t a lot of through customers that almost guarantees an exit row or near the front of the plane. It can actually be a good trick to make a long leg more comfortable.

  18. For the FFer’s who accumulate segments a direct night is only on segment even if it is two flights

  19. It’s not just Southwest that does this — although it is only Southwest that gives you a boarding number when you check in…

    I have friends all the time who are amazed that there are people already showing up on the airport upgrade lists when they check in right at the 24-hour limit for their flights… I remind them that, particularly in hub airports, that there may be connecting passengers that check in for all of their flights at the same time — which may be more than 24-hours in advance of that particular flight.

  20. Beware connecting flights on Southwest. Yesterday I flew Southwest from Las Vegas to San Francisco. I checked in exactly 24 hours in advance using the U.S. official time (time.gov). Normally this gets me a seat in the A boarding group. But yesterday I got stuck with boarding position B-50.

    I did some investigating, and it appears that if you have a connecting flight in Southwest you can check in for both flights 24 hours before the start of your first leg. So if you are flying from some airport XXX to San Francisco and connecting in Las Vegas, you’ll get a boarding number for the LAS-SFO leg of your itinerary at the same time that you get a boarding number for the XXX-LAS flight, which is more than 24 hours before the LAS-SFO flight departs. This puts you ahead of all the passengers who originate at LAS. Not sure if this is what happened to me yesterday, but it makes sense. Fortunately, I snagged the last window seat on the plane even with a high boarding number. I guess the lesson is to buy EarlyBoard on Southwest if you are originating at an airport with a high number of connecting passengers.

    I like connecting flights because they break up the time I spend trapped in a tiny airplane seat. But some connecting flights have absurd geography. When I worked in Houston I sometimes had to travel to Los Angeles, and my company had a preferred airline with a hub in Minneapolis. Flying from Houston to L.A. with a long layover in Minneapolis just to save $20 seemed pretty barbaric to me.

  21. Direct flights don’t bother me too much except most airlines or routes require that you get off the plane and then re-board which is a waste of time. Southwest has some that don’t which aren’t too bad.

  22. And, as many FF’s will tell you, some “direct” flights change equipment at the middle city. Of course the airline does not tell you that.
    I am still amazed at how many people book “direct” flights and surprised at how long the flight time is. LOL!

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