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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

#161

Post by rob74 »

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.

> the solution suggested of giving the 3 companies other unused prefixes like D* U* and A* to use with their codeshares

That would have the additional benefit of being able to tell at first glance if your flight is actually flown by the airline you are booking or by someone else. But I'm not sure airlines actually want this to be that obvious...

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

#162

Post by lxgr »

kalleboo wrote: post #127
bsimpson wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any easy ways to book an arbitrary itinerary across carriers?

I don't know about "arbitrary" but most of my travel I book with something like Expedia ends up being split across carriers without using codeshare numbers. E.g. over Christmas I visited my parents in Australia and the domestic leg to Tokyo was a JL flight number, and international leg was a QF flight number, both on the same itinerary/using the same confirmation code.

A CRS/GDS locator (PNR, the 6-digit alphanumeric code often used to identify tickets, but really only points to a GDSs database entry) and a ticket are not the same thing, though. A PNR can include non-air travel segments like hotels and rental cars too, for example.

That's something very different from a single airline issuing a ticket for a complete itinerary, which importantly makes them responsible for getting you to your final destination in case of missed connections, checking your baggage through etc.

If you still have the confirmations or boarding passes, you could check for the three-digit numeric e-ticket number prefix, which defines which carrier actually issued the ticket.

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

#163

Post by Pinus »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #114
skissane wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that once - book connecting flights on two different tickets - and although I ended up actually making the connection (despite the first flight running 2-3 hours late), the experience was so nerve-racking I swore I’d never do that again. It helped that the flight I was connecting to ended up running late too. The reason I did it was it was a personal side-trip (to see family) on an international work trip, and…

> provided I reimbursed them for the cost of the personal portion How does that work, given that the cost of the personal portion isn't independent of the rest of the booking? I was just looking at a flight plan on kiwi.com that they could book for $900, with the individual legs costing $250, $350, and $500 if booked through the carriers.

I’m not familiar with Kiwi, but I noticed a comment thread about them on travel.stackexchange.com recently, discussing whether to describe them as “fraud” or just “using booking practices that subject the client to extreme risks”. Be sure to read the fine print on that booking!

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

#164

Post by roshankhan28 »

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.

No but wasn't this issue was really obvious? like 4 digits number ending? could be a technology issue if this was invented in the 80's but as time progress the engineers should have seen coming this. and why cant we just use the same set of numbers again? like a flight from toronto to brazil or any part of the world , the flight will always be the same, there will always be a set of people that would want to go brazil from toronto. it will be easier that way to find the flights online and people can even memorize.

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

#165

Post by roshankhan28 »

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.

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

#166

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

bhelkey wrote: post #118
nailer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very obviously: do not display the hexadecimal code to end users.

So now you have three codes, the old code, a new internal and a new external code.

Two codes.

A competently designed system should be able to convert between "internal" and "external codes" using only trivial string manipulation (e.g. no external dependencies, nor any databases to load at runtime; while adding or removing the code type magic-prefix is trivial; and computing/veriftying/concatenating/trimming any check-digits should also be straightforward, like a CC or VIN check-digit.

...basically, copy what Stripe does (except I wish Stripe would announce a far smaller and reasonable length-limit for their Object-Ids instead of handwaving around a vague reference to needing as 255-char database column - because it messes-up all of my RDBMS query-plans' memory grants because it allocates (N rows * 255 bytes) whereas in reality all of my Stripe Object-Ids are well-under 32 chars in length, _le sigh_.

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

#167

Post by globular-toast »

lxgr wrote: post #146
jbandela1 wrote: post #50

> 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…

I could imagine many legacy systems identifying “their” flights based on the alphanumeric prefix alone (as opposed to doing a database lookup).

Yep. Not only a ton of software would make this assumption, but a ton of human-based processes too.

Lesson: if you make your IDs easily decodable, people will decode them and use them directly instead of whatever API you intended them to use.

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

#168

Post by raverbashing »

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.

> 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.

That's exactly it. And what happens in merger situations where they keep operating some of the flights with the letters of the old companies

The A* space seems full, the D* space is almost full though, U* has some space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes

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

#169

Post by vasco »

1123581321 wrote: post #113
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.

Still, the speculation is more interesting than the mockery of it. If someone is interested in the topic and wasn't invited to the airlines' internal discussions, they are necessarily going to repeat some of those internal discussions.

Yeah, I really don't understand the point of coming to a commenting website where people comment on stories and not expect comments about how they'd do it. Everyone does it at least in their mind, and the speculation as a group is the most fun about reading the news.

What's the point of reading the news if not to muse about "what happens next" or "how we should deal with this" in the story of the humans.

Should we sit there going "Welp, I guess someone knows more about this than me". If we took that attitude you'd never speak about anything.

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