noah

Does the new United have a shortage of flight numbers? Or is there some other logic that leads to the way they're currently using flight numbers? At PMUA, flight numbers used to be fairly consistent -- in my world for example UA 250 and 251 were the IAD-PDX nonstops for many years. International flights often were 9XX series etc. This not the case in the new United.

There are a few types of "strange" behavior I've witnessed:

- There is little consistency from day to day with flight numbers. On Tuesday I flew UA 947 PDX-SFO. This flight number but not aircraft continued on from SFO to LAS and LAS to DEN. Today, Wednesday, flight 947 goes from LAS to DEN and DEN to MSY
- The same flight number is used on multiple segments. Today, flight 250 includes one flight from LGA to ORD, one flight from ORD to SFO and another flight from SFO to PDX. However, each segment is operated by a separate aircraft and type (320, 757 and 319).
- It used to be that "direct" flights like these were a marketing tool because they would come up earlier in the reservation systems. However, there is often a significant gap (2-4 hours is not uncommon) between each segment. If someone booked a flight from LGA to PDX on said UA 250, it would be about the least efficient way to get there -- let alone adding insult to injury when it turned out that there were 2 very long connections and 2 changes of aircraft to the poor kettle who booked a trip from LGA to PDX.

Any insight welcome..

bsmnsr

i think it's the joys of integrating two completely different numbering conventions, flight routes, etc.

My guess is it will make more sense (fingers crossed) the further away from the integration date we get.

There've certainly been a lot of number conventions that don't seem to make a lot of sense.

andrewwm

They are indeed. See this post:

http://crankyflier.com/2012/05/01/wh...er-ask-cranky/

Spent_All_My_Miles

Delta's flight numbers similarly make less sense than they used to.

koc1723

UA is absolutely short on flight numbers.
With a hard limit of 4 digits for flight numbers.
running on average 5,605 flights per day (from their latest pr about line)
All of the codeshares that they have with *A+Copa+amtrak+etc they just do not have all the numbers they need.

That is why you see many express flights (and some mainline) doing roundtrips on the same flight number. ie EWR-ATL-EWR as flight #1234 (example). I have been on a few to ATL and MSP amongst others.
I think the Express operations are getting this more than mainline from my observations, but it is happening everywhere.

From the latest timetable you have UA/UA Express in the following flight # ranges, page 95: (removed extra sections and codeshares, but you will get the picture)
1 - 1299 United Airlines
1400 - 1744 United Airlines
3250 - 3299 UAX-Commutair
3300 - 3434 UAX-Trans States
3435 - 3579 UAX-Shuttle America
3580 - 3719 UAX-Go Jet
3720 - 3829 UAX-Mesa
3830 - 3909 UAX-Colgan Air
3910 - 3969 UAX-Colgan Air - former CO contract
3975 - 4059 UAX- Gulfstream
4060 - 4084 UAX - Gulfstream CLE
4085 - 4714 UAX - Expressjet
4715 - 4759 UAX-Chautauqua
4760 - 4834 UAX-CommutAir DH2
4835 - 4859 UAX-CommutAir DH3
4860 - 4969 UAX- Colgan Air/DH4
4970 - 5037 UAX- Colgan Air/SF3
5038 - 5082 UAX - Cape Air GUM
5123 - 5155 UAX-Shuttle America
5156 - 5223 UAX-Skywest
5224 - 5269 UAX- Skywest CRJ
5270 - 5289 UAX- Trans States
5290 - 5684 UAX-Skywest
5685 - 5784 UAX-Atlantic Southeast
5785 - 6014 UAX-Expressjet
6015 - 6189 UAX-Expressjet - former CO Contract
6190 - 6539 UAX- Skywest
6540 - 6548

Add all those up and you do not get 5600, so as other might say there is your problem!

sbm12

It is even more complicated when you consider that 1-199 and 1000+ are sCO and the others are sUA and those still have to remain split for now.

Hachiko

Atlantic Southeast no longer exists. They operate as Expressjet now.

SFOFastAir

Data from the May 2012 United timetable

1 - 199 United Airlines CO operated
200 - 999 United Airlines UA operated
1000 - 1299 United Airlines CO operated
1400 - 1744 United Airlines CO operated
1,644 United Airlines total

3255 - 6548 United Express
3,294 United Express total

4,938 Total availbel flight numbers

According to the United Continental Holdings web site United Airlines and United Express operate an average of 5,656 flights a day

emcampbe

This has been going on since well before the merger, but has accelerated since, I think.

About 5 years ago, all UA flights to Canada (mainline) had flight numbers in the 1100's, even numbers went north, odd went south (IIRC). Then they went to seemingly randomize it.

Similarly, in my hometown of CVG, the single mainline flight to ORD and back always used to be 398 and 489 ), however, now I get a different flight number almost anytime I'm on it.

tarheelnj

Granted this isn't a major issue, but it does add a step when checking status of a flight on your PDA and having to click through that one extra screen that asks "which flight number 9999 do you want?". Also, a flight expected to arrive late causing an equipment swap at the destination for an on time return could result in two flights with the same number passing each other in the air. ATC has a workaround for this possibility, but I don't remember what it is.

Flight number assignment used to be more of an art & marketing tool - PHL (1776), LAS (777), LHR (007), SFO (49), and some foreign flag carriers used Flight #1 for their flights into JFK.

bosbjg

I think that is the magic "8", so flight 250 becomes 8250 if the 1st 250 is still in the air when the new 250 takes off

Sykes

This was quite a problem a few years ago. Since then, United started appending letters to the flight numbers in their flight plans when the same flight number is used multiple times within a day ... so the second United 250 flight becomes United 250T (or similar).

halls120

So why isn't United using flight numbers between 1750-3249?

WineCountryUA

a quick check of the timetable shows
Have no idea what GBO or SOCC are, but the bulk are reserved fo UA/US codeshares.

Similiarily >6500 is mostly codeshares

halls120

Well, once AA and US merge, the flight number shortage goes away.