> The computer systems airlines use are built on top of systems that are built on top of systems that date back sixty years.
It means it’s the time to upgrade the system.
Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
41–50 of 461 posts
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree, but in 2024 where on earth could you staff large enough team to do such a task with developers that are self-disciplined enough to do it safely?
A collaboration between the US Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy. Lots of solid engineering out of Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia Labs. Make it a system owned and operated by the FAA.
I'm sure every other country on earth will approve of that. This needs to come from IATA, not the FAA.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
A collaboration between the US Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy. Lots of solid engineering out of Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia Labs. Make it a system owned and operated by the FAA.
I'm sure every other country on earth will approve of that. This needs to come from IATA, not the FAA.
I don’t have a strong opinion as to which org owns it, as long as it is a neutral non for profit party or other consortium arrangement. IATA did not immediately come to mind, so I appreciate the correction. Upvoted!
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#44Hexadecimal?
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#45Wouldn't the easy solution be to use two sets of letters for IATA coded flights for the same airline? Something like "DL1234" and "DZ1234" for Delta? I know a lot of the two-letter codes are claimed too, and I'm sure there must be some reason this wouldn't work OK, but it would seem like they they would each have at least one code left over from the various airlines they've acquired over the years? If an American Air…
It almost certainly would completely break thousands of functions that have those magic letters hard coded into them in fortran, cobol, C or whatever. You might even find that clever people back in the 70s used other ways of representing those letters so you can't even search for them. I've worked on codebases like this -- I've seen it take a team of engineers years to add a single digit to an ID number in a multi-mi…
But lots of airlines have come and gone or merged over the years and these systems would have already had to deal with new airlines codes?
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
NIMBY literally means "not in my backyard". Ownership has little to do with it. If you don't want a homeless shelter built next to where you rent, you're still a NIMBY, even if you don't own anything. Owning something might make you more inclined to object to developments, it's not a necessary factor.
Guess I wasn't clear. Yes ownership isn't essential but does make you more inclined to object to perceived negatives. In China the state owns the land, not the municipalities, nor private parties, so even if you live there you don't have much of a say. The state makes plans at such a large scale. This is why the Chinese are so efficient at building high speed rail, there aren't smaller municipalities, property owners…
>In China the state owns the land, not the municipalities, nor private parties, so even if you live there you don't have much of a say.
You're confusing cause an effect. The reason why people there don't have much of a say isn't because they can't own land. In fact both are caused by the same common factor: the country is communist.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#47The entire aviation industry feels like it is in need of a tech stack 100% rebuild. Systems like Sabre are 60+ years old.
Enormous path dependance. There's a photo in that article that shows the problem: the flip-tab sign that has space for four numerical digits. I was thinking they could just switch from 0-9 to 0-9A-Z but that photo showed why that would be a disaster. Plus any solution has to be approved for use worldwide. Fortunately the two-digit IATA codes have already switched to 0-9A-Z (e.g. JetBlue is B6) so allowing constrained…
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Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree, but in 2024 where on earth could you staff large enough team to do such a task with developers that are self-disciplined enough to do it safely?
A collaboration between the US Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy. Lots of solid engineering out of Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia Labs. Make it a system owned and operated by the FAA.
> Lots of solid engineering out of Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia Labs.
Researchers and academics are quite possibly the last people on earth I would ask to deliver safety-critical software.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#49Wouldn't the easy solution be to use two sets of letters for IATA coded flights for the same airline? Something like "DL1234" and "DZ1234" for Delta? I know a lot of the two-letter codes are claimed too, and I'm sure there must be some reason this wouldn't work OK, but it would seem like they they would each have at least one code left over from the various airlines they've acquired over the years? If an American Air…
This solution is so simple it's what they will do. But only after spending millions researching every other solution.
And by "researching" we mean overpaying consultants who will do absolutely nothing useful.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#50> Except they don’t. American Airlines, Delta, and United are running out of flight numbers, and nobody knows what to do about it.
All of the above mentioned airlines are the size they are because of mergers.
Why don’t they use the IATA codes of the airlines they absorbed. For example Delta merged with Northwestern. In addition to DL, they could also use NW. American merged with USAirways. They could use US in addition to AA. United merged with Continental. They could use CO in addition to UA.