In article ,
F. Baum wrote:
On Jan 4, 3:37*pm, (John Clear) wrote:

Is this United's infamous 'change of gauge' 'direct' flight trick?
According to FlightAware, UAL893L is a 757 flying KJFK-KSFO and
UAL893 is a 777 flying KSFO-RKSI (Seoul, Korea).

Not the old "Change of gauge direct flight trick" again. Whats that ?

On the reservation systems, UAL893 shows as KJFK-RKSI, with a stop
in KSFO. But it isn't just a stop in KSFO, it is a change of planes
as well (757 - 777, probably change of terminals too). Since it
has just one flight number, it will appear before connecting flights,
even though it is a connecting flight.


Does the letter have any special meaning beyond that it appears to
be another flight using the same flight number but a different
aircraft?
Here's the story, when an airline has a through flight (Through a hub
airport), and the inbound flight is running late and the outbound
flight is a different AC (Or another plane and crew can be rerouted),
they will send the outbound flight on time but with a different call
sign. You cannot have two flights in the air at the same time with
that flight number.

So the letter is just randomly assigned then, or procedure varies
by airline?

Thanks,

John
--
John Clear - http://www.clear-prop.org/