Why Are Airlines Adding So Many Random Connecting Flights? Blame the U.S. Relief Package

In typical conditions, U.S. airline planners seek to create the most efficient schedules, so customers can reach their destinations quickly, either with a nonstop flight or a quick connection. But these are no ordinary times. In creating their schedules for the next couple of months, some U.S airlines have reverted to decades-old strategies, adding circuitous routing, like so-called tag and circle flights, to satisfy conditions of the CARES Act, which requires airlines fly to nearly every airport they served before the Covid-19 crisis. If they don't meet the standards defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation, or DOT, they will lose their share of $25 billion in grants. Tags and circle routes typically are not passenger-friendly. Customers who book these flights will spend more time on an aircraft than they might have expected, and probably will fly way out of their way. The airline saves costs and uses fewer aircraft than normal. In a tag flight, an aircraft makes a st