MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

DL does it for turns. I've noticed that Eagle is now doing with turns, example LGA/ATL.

Himeno

I just got the same thing, my JFK-BOS-JFK (in Oct 16, out Oct 21) has been changed from AA1838/AA1899 to AA84 both ways (I wonder what the ORD-FRA is changing to).
DTW-ORD changed from AA3250 to AA3256.
3/4 AA flights on one ticket changed. Better check my other one

Other ticket;
SFO-ORD AA1772 > AA1282
ORD-MIA AA2074 > AA1044

Looks like my other flights are the same (for now).

Would these schedule changes allow a free reroute?

mvoight

Very?
Are they restricted by the government to only four digits, and no alpha characters? I was not aware of that. It's a bit like saying they were limited to 2 digits years in the past.

relangford

Just had my 9/22 flight from DCA>DFW renumbered as AA 2498 (from AA 1347) with same times (but no e-mail from AA). I found out when I was making a second reservation for my wife to accompany me. At 8:00 AM, the flight number was still 1347 on my reservation, but aa.com gave me 2498 for hers. At 9:00 AM, my reservation was changed to 2498. I guess the booking engine works faster than the current reservations engine.

Also, four digits allows for 10,000 combinations - I don't think any airline has THAT many flights. Some might have to be moved around a little to prevent the same flight numbers for different airlines from the same departure airport and maybe some "bad numbers" like "666" eliminated, but surely 10,000 are enough. This assumes the "0" could be the first one, two, or three digits, so single digit numbers, dual digit numbers, and triple digit numbers would all be allowed.

Herb687

From an ATC perspective, they are not.

AAL123A, AAL456T are perfectly acceptable flight numbers as far as ATC systems are concerned. I'm not sure, though, if AAL3456A would work. I don't think I have ever seen a callsign with an alpha character after a four-digit flight number. We have a few ATCs on this forum, they could shed more light on acceptable formats for callsigns/data blocks.

All-alpha is certainly acceptable as ATC systems must be able to handle private flights from other countries that use no digits at all in their aircraft registrations:

XAABC, CFTIO, GBAKS (the dash after country prefix is omitted in ATC data blocks, I believe) are valid ATC "flight numbers"

Back to the airline world, CRS/GDS is an entirely different animal, however. I suspect legacy res systems can handle no more than four numeric digits after the two character IATA airline code.

swag

That was my first thought.

With the old numbering system, it was easy to remember that on domestic flights, the seats closest to Boston get first choice. Now, I suppose I'll start having to actually look at flight numbers.

imapilotaz

Actually, the 9000 series is virtually never used for scheduled service, as they are predominately charter, extra section, etc.

And keep in mind that for August 8, 2013, DL has scheduled 5,970 flights, AA has 3,761... AA does not have an issue today, but when you add in US's 3,309, there will be a serious issue with flight numbers, hence why they are changing. There are also issues with "like sounding" flight numbers that can not be used at the same time into/out of the same hub, and codeshare flights, blocked flight numbers, etc.

As for the alpha in the number, ATC has no issue, as the General Aviation system is based on tail numbers which all have alpha in them. The systems at airlines (Flight Tracking, Scheduling, etc) are all built with just numeric codes. Things including Revenue Accounting, Finance, Crew Planning, etc would all have to be changed. I remember one of my airlines saying that we had over 200 different programs that look at the flights in one way or another. Every single one would have to be updated and there is no chance that at least one of them doesnt crap out with the changes.

Phoenixtinct

While airlines do have plenty of flight numbers for their own metal, when you factor in codeshares flown by partners, 10,000 is simply not enough. Just look at how many LH codeshares UA has - about a 1,000. Same thing with AA - they have a JV with BA and JL, so the amount of codeshares can be huge. So, yes, airlines can assign a different flight number for every segment they operate (as I think they should) but it's the codeshares that make everything so complicated and necessitate the "smart" use of flight numbers.

jeffreyt

This explains why 1306 - LAX-BNA and turns in Nashville to 1307 BNA-LAX turns into 1307 roundtrip.

aaupgrade

Same for my flights DFW-DEN/DEN-DFW in October, which are both flight 1239. Bye bye FEBO. Although with the option to reserve one's meals in advance, FEBO is not really needed.

hillrider

They are, by IATA standardization rules.

If AA leaves IATA, then they can explore other ways of calling their flights, but will probably encounter all sort of problems with common use airport systems, like the displays at DFW and most non-US airports and most of the systems airport use in the back-office. And, of course, they would not be able to sell a single interline ticket, nor use (most) existing ticketing platforms--they would have to build their own or have one customized just for them.

Eye of Storm

Why bye bye FEBO? Isn't FEBO still applicable, just with both "E" or both "O" in the two directions?

VickiSoCal

Has anyone ever had this happen on an itinerary?

phillyjoe

Once, between DFW and MIA about 4 years ago.

FWAAA

If memory serves me correctly, a few years ago, ORD-DUB-ORD was all the same flight number.