Direct v. Nonstop
Direct v. Nonstop. I thought that these two words were synonyms in flight lingo, but found out this week that this is a novice’s blunder when dealing with airlines. Many months ago, I booked a flight from coast to coast for my husband and myself. At the time of initial booking, I purchased more expensive tickets to fly from point A to point B as my husband is not a big fan of flying in general. Less stops means a happier overall trip. However, when I confirmed my flight this week, I was not informed of a schedule change and rather received an email moments later “confirming” my itinerary change. This new change had a bit of a surprise - we now had a 2-3 hour layover. I called Expedia and my call was routed to customer service where the representatives and I had a bit of a language barrier. The solution? I just called back until I reached someone who could understand why I was upset that after paying more for my ticket, I was now going to have to endure a layover with a man who may need medication to make it to our destination. What I found out was that a direct flight may have a layover since if you are technically on the same flight number, you are on a direct flight. A nonstop flight, on the other hand, is one where you take off from point A and land at point B, the destination. When I bought the ticket, I did not pay attention if this was a direct or nonstop flight. I just looked at where the plane took off, where it landed and if there were any layovers. To all of you out there thinking of scheduling a flight anytime in the future, here’s a helpful distinction that can save you multiple frustrating calls to resolve. At any rate, we did resolve this issue and are now on a nonstop flight - albeit with a departure almost 3 hours later then originally planned.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:09 am
THANK YOU for the public service announcement.
I did not know the definition between ‘direct’ and ‘non-stop’. Wouldn’t you say that the term ‘direct’ is very misleading?
The airlines industry is a lazy, flawed system and they don’t give a crap because ultimately, citizens who must travel can’t avoid flying. In the past few years of frequent travel, I’ve seen it all. They can jack up flight prices at will, randomly change peoples’ itinerary, lose luggage in mass quantities, subject 10-year-old kids to searches, and announce at the boarding gate that the flight is overbooked and someone has to voluntarily stay back for prizes.
Your situation is seriously unacceptable. I’m glad you raised hell and fought the system.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Seriously, thanks for the heads up. What a chore!
May 21st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I think that it is deliberate that these key words are left out when one is actually purchasing a flight. The terms are very misleading. This past week a family member had another debacle with Expedia and ended up foregoing the trip because of the exorbitant cost of changing a flight due to sickness. It is just nuts when you think about how 3 people could be sitting next to each other in a plane and they could have all paid ridiculously different amounts for their tickets. I think that airline tickets should be more regularly priced instead of this Vegas style system that we currently have where you don’t know what you bought as it could change at any time.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Thanks for posting this. I just recently found out the difference when I got on an airplane and wondered why we were landing somewhere that wasn’t on my boarding pass. I guess that’s learning the hard way. Luckily I like flying and wasn’t much bothered by it. I’ve figured out if you book on Southwest the way you can tell the difference between direct and nonstop is under the stops column it will say N/S for nonstop. If it is direct it will have a number there. If it is a connecting flight it will have a number/airport code. It’s all kind of esoteric stuff that is hard to make sense of if you don’t research it.