keepssmile

This is not uncommon.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...d.main/223133/
Probably AA needs to accommodate all US's flights and therefore cleans up flight numbers.

CoyoteExecPlatinum

Ok, got a weird thing- Had a flight DFW/MSY on 11-14. Some change happened, to the flight number, don't recall inbound or out, but now, weirdly- the DFW/MSY=AA362. the return- MSY/DFW=AA362.

Odd. So I call EP desk, and she says yeah, its rare, usually they increment it. Ok, so I tell her ANOTHER of my flights is the same thing, this time DFW/BOS. 9-9 FLT 2251. THen few days later, the same thing- BOS-DFW, also flight 2251.

This seemed to get the attention of the EP agent who now thinks that something is up system/glitch wise.

I would think this same flight number in two completely different directions, in fact as a turn, would even cause some ATC issues. its not a 'continuing flight' situation after all.

The agent says she will call back when the flight planning department responds. I will post the outcome- again not a big deal, but certainly curious. Also- got the emails within 3 minutes of each other, along with a 3rd about a schedule change....

hillrider

No, it's not, it's all just fine.

Glad to see that employees are still not reading their MANDATORY communications. And that AA management is still not doing its supervisory job.

AA is compressing its number ranges to make space for US codeshares and as such is reusing the same number on roundtrips. It was supposed to be for Eagle only, and maybe they're doing it for mainline as well.

In any case, there's no risk of any IT issues. A flight is identified by number, date, and on/off points, so you're totally fine. Same with ATC. None of these systems care if it's "continuing" or "returning to origin".

Incidentally, as of now AA has started the migration for flights on September 3 - November 20, 2013; they're probably doing it in stages, so you will see many more renumberings in the future.

Antarius

My flight (DEN to LAX) on Friday was the same flight number as the LAX to DEN inbound flight. Odd, but the flights went off ok, so I assume it isn't causing ATC issues.

EDIT - Thanks hillrider.

Herb687

It's not that weird at all, really. Many airlines (including MQ, I believe) have used the same flight number for both segments of a RT turn for quite some time now.

It wouldn't. If ATC can differentiate between the AUS-DFW and DFW-PIT legs of the same flight number they can just as easily differentiate between the DFW-SAT and SAT-DFW legs of the same flight number.

Although if AA was really worried they could always use a completely different flight number or append a letter to the end of the flight number for ATC purposes. Airlines can operate flights with an ATC flight number that has nothing to do whatsoever with its res system flight number.

Stripe

I have not seen this on AA before but I see it frequently on DL.

JDiver

Isn't that the truth! And now that some of training has gone CBT, some folks are just idling through it and not much sticks. I'd love if we got a rebate for training occasional employees how to o their jobs; if it were out of their pocket, I'd bet they'd pay more attention.

Herb687

What about on Eagle? I could have sworn I've seen this on MQ for a couple years now.

alhcfp

Doesn't AAdvanatge issue credit by flight number and not segments?

Does this cause any issues with flight credits?

imapilotaz

As someone who has scheduled for most of the major airlines in one capacity or another, I can say that all airlines have done this, or are doing this. This is not new, just new for AA. AA started doing this a few years ago again for Chautauqua flights when they moved to ORD, as the shorter stage lengths created more flights than flight number range allowed.

Airlines have a very finite number of flight numbers, and when you do mergers or new codeshares, you end up having to move things around to "carve" out flight number ranges that are uniquely assigned. This also becomes more problematic with the more regional partners... since each airline must have a flight number range carved out, but those flight numbers for SkyWest must be different (ie DL, AA, UA, and US all have to have different flight number ranges... you can not have an overlap, as AA 4900 will be flown as SkyWest 4900... and if SkyWest operated a DL 4900, it would show up as duplicate flights).

To answer another question, the reason why you do this as an out and back from the hub airport, is so that you dont have much of a chance an aircraft swap causing two aircraft with the same number to be in the air at the same time. It can happen every now and then, and airlines will just file a different flight number for it.

Now the bigger question is, on thru flights with the same flight number, the segment only counts as 1 with AAdvantage... for those of us that do mileage runs at times, if we take an out & back DFW-SFO-DFW on a single flight number, will it recognize it as a single flight segment?

Herb687

I highly, HIGHLY doubt it. I've never had any problems getting flights credited on DL and DL has done this for a while now.

Through flight numbers have existed since the dawn of commercial airlines.

Again, if an airline's systems are good enough to post the correct leg of flight 1234 AUS-DFW-PIT (the airline knows whether you flew AUSDFW, DFWPIT or AUSPIT), they are certainly good enough to know which leg (or both legs) of flight 1234 DFW-PHL-DFW you flew.

TonySCV

I've found an IT anomaly that's an issue for an upcoming MR.

My lone mileage run for the year has had its flight numbers change. My DFW-ATL-DFW "turn" now has the same flight number. When I go to re-request my upgrades, I cannot request the 2nd ATL-DFW "leg" of the flight. When I try, it just says "not requested" and brings me back to the same screen.

I called the EXP desk to take care of the upgrade re-request and no mention was made of any issue (I noticed the anomaly after the call). Do you or anyone know how AA's computers handle something like this? Does it treat this as a "direct" flight for purposes of upgrading? I've never had a mileage run "turn" with the same flight #'s before.

nrr

How is the FEBO rule now applied.

hillrider

No, for all through flights it won't accrue them as a single segment if they're booked as two or more separate segments. Before AA implemented an inhibition in Sabre, we would often book throughs as two segments for that exact reason.

These roundtrip flights have to be booked as separate segments as for obvious reasons AA inhibits the booking of DFW-XXX-DFW as a through (I'd like to see the fare on that one! ).

Edited to add: now the only issue I can see is if you book DFW-XXX-DFW as two segments, but Sabre doesn't allow it because it forces a through, which obviously cannot be booked. So I checked and that's not the case.

hillrider

Oh, AA.com, that's a thing full of bugs. Not at all surprised you found yet another one.

My comment was keeping in mind Sabre and the systems that "run" the airline. And thankfully the team who does AA.com is probably not even allowed to be anywhere close to this!