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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

#211

Post by josu »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #98
gentle wrote: post #83

I love that so many people here think they can think about the problem for 10 seconds and come up with a solution that hasn't already been considered a thousand times and discarded.

Any well-written article should anticipate, ask, and answer the obvious questions. For example: Why not use alphanumeric characters? And if the answer isn't known by the sources the writer quotes, the writer should say so.

>Why not use alphanumeric characters?

Someone hardcoded that field 50 years ago and it's impossible to change the type. It would be easier to just abandon planes altogether, and set up a parallel transportation system.

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

#214

Post by chgs »

lxgr wrote: post #140
rurban wrote: post #138

They already have a better solution. Did you see AAA777 to Las Vegas. So they are able to add alpha to numerics, when needed. Return flights sharing the number? Why not.

Are you sure that’s a real flight number, and you’re not confusing it with AAL777 (which would be AA’s ICAO code, AA being IATA)? I don’t think alphanumeric flight numbers are a thing currently.

AF296Q was a flight which crashed in 1988

They are rare though

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

#215

Post by slightwinder »

blahedo wrote: post #139

I'm remembering the ISBN switch, which I thought would throw off some older systems—and it probably did, but it took so long to happen that the transition ended up being pretty smooth. The key element was that for a solid ten years or so, every book had both an old-style and a new-style ISBN (and possibly some still do). I'm hoping that behind the scenes they really are looking at a better plan than just "work around…

> I'm hoping that behind the scenes they really are looking at a better plan than just "work around it",

Airline-IT is mostly just a big pile of workarounds to cope with limitations from 40+ year old systems. I've worked with reservation systems and seen their modernizations through the years. Modern xml-formats shoving megabytes of data for every reservation. They are very wasteful, generously designed with redundant fields, long feature-lists and all kind of annoying shit. But at the end, your whole booking can still drip on the passenger's name being one character too long. Even after decades and multiple iterations of interfaces, at the core the systems today still depend on whatever someone in the 1960s considered as good enough for the US-market.

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

#216

Post by ginko »

xattt wrote: post #201
ginko wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do airlines even need separate flight numbers for codeshare flights? Why not just use the flight number of the operating airline in the booking? IMO it's just confusing for passengers as well.

I feel the real reason is also why badge engineered cars also exist: market capture.

I mean sure, but all that branding will fall apart once you board the plane and the livery, and everything else is branded by the operating airline anyways.

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

#217

Post by slightwinder »

gentle wrote: post #83

I love that so many people here think they can think about the problem for 10 seconds and come up with a solution that hasn't already been considered a thousand times and discarded.

It's because people don't understand that the problem is not finding a solution, but implementing it. This space is simply a mess, much more than even your normal messy IT.

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

#218

Post by heisenbit »

Maybe, just maybe the solution is to stop flight code sharing. Having one flight under different numbers is confusing at best and feels misleading. Just imagine giving airlines more space to spam everyone with a magnitude more numbers. Just picture announcement boards at airports…

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

#220

Post by sokoloff »

Scoundreller wrote: post #154
rchowe wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally in order to ticket an itinerary, there needs to be at least one flight marketed (e.g. with the airline's flight number) by the "plating carrier" whose ticket stock the flights are issued on. I can't buy an itinerary consisting of just BA238 on aa.com but I can buy AA6981 which is its codeshare. I can also buy an itinerary where I fly AA on BOS-JFK and connect to BA JFK-LHR, because there's at least one AA-m…

> I can also buy an itinerary where I fly AA on BOS-JFK and connect to BA JFK-LHR, because there's at least one AA-marketed flight on the ticket. Dunno if that’s a requirement that AA has, but I’ve totally bought 100% Air France metal tickets that don’t even touch US soil on Delta because Delta sold the same itinerary for way less.

You bought them on their DL#### codeshare flight number (what [AA or DL]-marketed means in GP's comment).

I fly a lot of "Delta" flights that are entirely KLM or Republic metal, often buying the Republic flights with Delta points earned on the KLM flights. (NB: the Republic airplanes say “Delta” on the side, while the KLM ones say KLM.)

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