Changes in Flight Numbers Over Six Months?
Apr 22, 2017, 5:04 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2017
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Changes in Flight Numbers Over Six Months?
Curious about a situation...booked a trip well in advance...happened to check on all flights...the flights that are booked are not listed as a departing flight from the airports. Since this is 6 months in advance, does AA schedules and flights #'s change? Just wondering...
Apr 23, 2017, 2:31 pm
#2
Join Date: Jun 2014
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Curious about a situation...booked a trip well in advance...happened to check on all flights...the flights that are booked are not listed as a departing flight from the airports. Since this is 6 months in advance, does AA schedules and flights #'s change? Just wondering...
Apr 23, 2017, 6:36 pm
#3
Join Date: Dec 2007
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This happens extremely often when you book more than 6 months in advance, and it usually works to your advantage, as schedule changes can open up the tickets for free changes, depending on how much of a change happens.
Apr 23, 2017, 8:36 pm
#4
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When a flight number is changed and the time is changed a bit it seems to become a "new flight" for the purpose of reported on time statistics. Creating a new flight this way allows wiping out any poorly performing flight and gives time for the new flight number to establish its "new" on time record.
Apr 24, 2017, 12:25 am
#5
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I think what OP means is that AA123 could be DFW-JFK today and MIA-LAX in three months.
Apr 24, 2017, 12:45 am
#6
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It sounds like he checked month ahead of time for a flight listed in the future as AA123 from DFW-LAX, but there is no such flight listed in the future between those cities, and wants to know if AA already knows there will be a AA123 between MIA-LAX for the date he has booked.
Apr 24, 2017, 8:46 am
#7
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When a flight number is changed and the time is changed a bit it seems to become a "new flight" for the purpose of reported on time statistics. Creating a new flight this way allows wiping out any poorly performing flight and gives time for the new flight number to establish its "new" on time record.
DOT tracks flights as being (for example) the 5pm-ish DFW-LGA.
It could be #123 departing at 5:01 one week and #989 at 5:05 the next week, those are the same flight for DOT on time rankings.
Per 14 CFR Part 234 (Airline Service Quality Performance Reports), Part 234.2 (Definitions):
New flight means a flight added to a carrier's schedule to operate in a specific origin-destination city pair and not scheduled to depart within 30 minutes of any discontinued flight that was contained in the carrier's published schedules for the same city pair during the previous month.
I was a Gate AAgent 30+ years ago, long before DOT on-time reporting. AA has always had this habit of tweaking flight numbers, departure times, pairings etc.