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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

#181

Post by growse »

missedthecue wrote: post #180
growse wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's good to have self-sustainable industries... There's no such thing as a 'self-sustaining industry'. They all rely on common transportation infrastructure which they use to ship their materials and goods around and get their employees to work. They all rely on a predictable and fair marketplace whose fairness is governed by the state, and they all rely on people not coming and burning their premises down because…

Self sustaining means they generate enough revenues to cover their costs. Not that they are closed systems with no interaction with general society.

My point is that they don't feel their costs. Therefore by definition they're all "forever sucking on the public teet."

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#182

Post by prmoustache »

gumby wrote: post #32
Havoc wrote: post #11

The 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…

> Plus any solution has to be approved for use worldwide.

I don't see why for instance you could do a slow roll out by using only letters for internal flights of countries that are ready for the switch. If you did that at first only for the USA that would probably leave enough room for Delta and the 2 other companies that need them in the short term. And then you upgrade the rest of north america: Mexico + Canada, then you continue the roll out. I am pretty sure all european countries could coordinate to do the switch at a specific date in the future as well.

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#183

Post by dotancohen »

jachee wrote: post #122
Charon77 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the history of airlines I'm not quite sure if you're joking or not. Sounds plausible ngl

I know explaining a joke always makes it super funny, but… this is a NetEng joke about IPv6 being overbuilt.

IPv6 is seen and used directly by professionals, not the general public. Overbuilding it in the sense being mocked made sense.

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#184

Post by yread »

You can do it like Easyjet. They have normal easyJet EZY, easyJet Switzerland S.A. EZS, easyJet Europe Gmbh EJU. Problem solved. OK they have a lot fewer planes than United but 99% of their flights are short (<3h) so they probably need similar number of flight numbers

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#185

Post by nolok »

zeagle wrote: post #80

Clearly 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.

If you think it takes a long time for ipv6 to "take over" in the old back bone infrastructure of the internet, trust me you have seen nothing compared to making that kind of change in air travel back bones.

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#186

Post by prmoustache »

nilram wrote: post #70
linotype wrote: post #68

5 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.

Shouldn't they had started thinking about that 20 years ago as to be ready now?

Re: Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers

#188

Post by NeoTar »

roshankhan28 wrote: post #165
NeoTar wrote: post #148

I wonder if I see an earlier version of this problem - I take the flight BA988 from London to Berlin a few times a year, and in some systems it will appear as BA0988 - possibly because some can handle 3 digit and some neee 4 digit flight numbers.

as you are a person who takes the same flight frequently , wont it be easier having the same flight number ? the flight companies should just make the flight numbers fixed for a fixed route, like local buses.

I'm a little confused by your comment - Airlines do re-use flight numbers - BA988 is always the BA flight from LHR to BER at around 19:30 (i.e. there will be a BA988 today, there was one yesterday, and there will be another tomorrow).

But to be honest, I'd also say it's not that useful for me personally. It's a lot easier to remember your destination and fight-time - (i.e. I'm on the 19:30 to Berlin) than a flight-number, and only once do I think there was ever the potential for confusion).

[You experience may vary, especially if you are are used to flying a busy flight corridor.]

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