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Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
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Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#52Earlier 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.
> 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.
Researchers and academics did pretty well on weather models, which are much more important to safety than aviation software, because you can’t just disable severe weather for a few days.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why does it matter that they operate at a loss? Because if it's massively subsidized by the state, and air travel is still competitive (at least for some journeys), I doubt high speed rail is good enough to fully supplant airlines on its merits alone. >Does China subsidise its air industry like other countries (jet fuel is duty free in the UK) Why is jet fuel being duty free a "subsidy"? High speed rail is powered b…
> Because if it's massively subsidized by the state, and air travel is still around, I doubt high speed rail is good enough to supplant airlines on its merits alone. Is annihilation of the air transport sector really your bar as to whether or not HSR is good enough ? > Why is jet fuel being duty free a "subsidy"? High speed rail is powered by electricity, which as far as I know doesn't have duty applied either. When…
> When the government taxes all other transport fuels except jet fuel, it sure looks like a subsidy.
Maybe because planes don't cause massive burden on infrastructure. Look at how much road damage buses do - you're a better off riding in an actual taxi...
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#54Earlier 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.
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Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#55Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#56Wouldn'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…
That's not such a great solution, it kicks the can down the road and it's super confusing to humans to have the same airline be represented different ways.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#57[flagged]
China is probably the best case scenario for high speed trains. They have high population density to support train networks, virtually no opposition from NIMBYs, and low construction costs. Yet high speed trains there operate at a loss[1], and airplanes are still competitive there. If high speed rail doesn't work there, how could you seriously claim we should switch all air travel to high speed rail? [1] https://en.w…
It doesn’t matter to me that transportation operates at a loss. It’s a good thing that people can afford to go where they need to.
Maybe a stronger argument is the fact that airlines are so popular at all. High speed rail is great but air travel is still 2-3x faster over long distances, and China is a big country. If we had high speed rail in the US, people would still probably opt for air travel a lot of the time. New York to LA would take 9+ hours.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#58> 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 additi…
That would be a recipe for confusion among pilots and controllers. They rely on visual sighting of aircraft for some operations and have to maneuver in relation to each other so if the livery doesn't match the IATA code then that increases the risk of error.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Researchers and academics did pretty well on weather models, which are much more important to safety than aviation software, because you can’t just disable severe weather for a few days.
Weather forecasting is a science problem.
Flight codes -- and making sure they don't break systems -- is a software engineering problem.
Different skillsets. I know folks who work at national labs. They have neither the skillset nor the interest to do this kind of work. (I am a researcher)