> Here’s the full answer, along with how they triage the problem – for instance by assigning the same flight number to more than one flight a day (although that means they need for it to be flights that would never both be in the air at the same time, such as where the same plane is used and can’t reasonably be substituted) This sounds like it's calling for trouble! Whenever I hear that any IDs could be "recycled", I…
I'm certain each flight has its own completely unique ID buried somewhere in a database. But, shorter codes can be spoken into a radio faster and with lower probability of misinterpretation - both critical features for air traffic control. Those shorter codes will necessarily be reused, it's just a question of the time interval between re-uses of any particular code. I faintly recall seeing two Southwest flights from…
My mother recently had an itinerary where both her flights were this flight - the PHL-ATL leg on a Sunday and the ATL-PHL leg on the following Saturday.
(It looks like as of Tuesday AA 1992 becomes a DFW-SEA-DFW flight, but it's the same sort of thing.)
I figure this isn't a problem as long as the two legs are flown by the same plane. But what if the PHL-ATL flight were delayed and American decided to fly the ATL-PHL flight as scheduled with a different plane (say because lots of people booked on that flight had connections at PHL?) That seems like it could create trouble.