Switch to hex.
Or just use letters in addition to numbers in the flight number. It woudn't take any more space in the data field, but chances are that a lot of them are coded as PIC 9(4) instead of PIC X(4).
Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
71–80 of 461 posts
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#72give the really big airlines some numeric codes that start with the right number. For example, give Delta D7 as well. Then they can have DL1234 and D71234 etc
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#73Earlier 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…
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Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How many airports still have flip-tab signs? Do they need to stay? Aren't they adding to an already noisy area? What's their maintenance cost vs. a LCD? What's their energy consumption vs. a LCD?
Same problem on LCD/with the font you use though - those displays are dense, and designed around room for 'AB1234'. Confusing to have it scroll when it already rotates into some other information too.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#75I don't even understand the point of code-share flight numbers. The first thing I do when I see one is look up the original flight number. Most flight search engines will also show you the original carrier.
Why not just get rid of them and book on the original flight number? Is it needed somehow in their systems to know how a flight was booked or what flights are eligible? Can that be fixed instead of the flight numbers?
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#765 digits instead of 4?
The amount of travel industry software is huge, and a mix of ancient and new. Makes sense, but would take years.
Easy, add a leading 0... Oh wait they probably store them as integers, but then it wouldn't matter how many digits... Oh wait some places it's fixed length strings
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#77Earlier 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
How do you explain nail houses in China then?
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/apr/15/china...
Any chance your bold assertion is something you just pulled out of the air?
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#785 digits instead of 4?
There's a decent chance that several important airline systems are storing things in fixed-width fields, so that, e.g., the flight number is columns 25-28.
Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Here we are talking about running out of codes due to codeshares; the planes do not identify themselves this way. But, similar reasons: mixing branding is going to cause confusion (codeshares already do this enough without injecting a “third” airline into the mix).
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Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
#80Clearly the successor solution is to use eight groups of four hexadecimal digits each, separated by colons. Then each individual seat and peanut could be addressed to it's final destination.
More seriously the solution suggested of giving the 3 companies other unused prefixes like D* U* and A* to use with their codeshares and non rev flights to start seems the easiest.