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Old Aug 17, 2022, 1:14 am
  #1  
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Special Flight Numbers are Gone

Flight 1492 DFW-CMH-DFW now flies mostly PHL-DFW

Flight 1776 PHL-BOS-PHL now flies CLT-MSY

Flight 777 LAX-LAS-LAX now flies ORD-BOS

What gives?

As a CMH-based Spaniard, I'm offended!
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 1:19 am
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Originally Posted by Spanish
Flight 777 LAX-LAS-LAX now flies ORD-BOSWhat gives?
guess the Encore in Boston will have to do! No lucky 7s to Vegas for you!
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Last edited by Microwave; Aug 17, 2022 at 5:00 am Reason: Removed political commentary
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 3:40 am
  #3  
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They just seem to be flight numbers - are you reading more into it than there actually is? they don't seem to be 'gone' based on your description, just used on other routes
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 4:42 am
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Originally Posted by Spanish
Flight 1492 DFW-CMH-DFW now flies mostly PHL-DFW

Flight 1776 PHL-BOS-PHL now flies CLT-MSY

Flight 777 LAX-LAS-LAX now flies ORD-BOS

What gives?

As a CMH-based Spaniard, I'm offended!
Darling - I cannot answer your question as I gave up when they started having the same flight number for the outbound and inbound, Where did that some from?

What I will tell you is that if I found that the IRROPs witch had put be about a flight #1203 - I would be a no-show par excellence, I wonder if anyone knows why?

What a fun thread this promises to be!
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 6:10 am
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Originally Posted by Spanish
Flight 1492 DFW-CMH-DFW now flies mostly PHL-DFW

Flight 1776 PHL-BOS-PHL now flies CLT-MSY

Flight 777 LAX-LAS-LAX now flies ORD-BOS

What gives?

As a CMH-based Spaniard, I'm offended!

I've long believed that they play this "change the flight # game every 2 months" crap as a way to reset their otherwise horrible on time stats for each flight.
There are many flights that I have taken in the past under multiple flight numbers but were still the same route + / - 5 mins to schedule, but now continually get new numbers every few months. Often, the on time performance data is unavailable, likely because it is too new of a flight.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 7:11 am
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Originally Posted by Dave Noble
They just seem to be flight numbers - are you reading more into it than there actually is? they don't seem to be 'gone' based on your description, just used on other routes
The flight numbers are easter eggs conveying hidden meaning related to the city pair.

1492 - year Columbus "discovered" America
1776 - year America declared independence
777 - jackpot on a slot machine

I'm guessing there's not much of a sense of fun at American airlines these days to appreciate humor like this (not to mention all of the disruptions to schedules).
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 7:56 am
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A few years ago, JetBlue used to have a Flight 1776 between PHL-BOS. Found this in my history.

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Old Aug 17, 2022, 8:15 am
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This is such a shame.
I remember flying NW 808 from Minneapolis to Honolulu. I always thought that was clever.
Considering that 1493 crashed at LAX, I am a bit more forgiving to see that flight number go away.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 8:30 am
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CO had Flight 3 LAXHNL which was an homage to Airport (1970); if you recall CO3 was heard in the opening scene of Airport when its announced "attention, attention please. Continental Airlines announces the departure of flight 3 for Los Angeles and Honolulu"

What gets confusing though is when they reuse flight numbers on roundtrips, which is understandable because they only have 9999 combinations with 4 digits. I've seen ORDSTL and STLORD operate with the same flight number.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 9:05 am
  #10  
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Originally Posted by qukslvr619
What gets confusing though is when they reuse flight numbers on roundtrips, which is understandable because they only have 9999 combinations with 4 digits. I've seen ORDSTL and STLORD operate with the same flight number.
That's pretty common on Hub-outstation-hub flights. It started when they Integrated the USAir flights into the AA schedule.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 9:24 am
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I posted this previously in another thread, but AA21, which for a very long time was an evening JFK-LAX nonstop, now operates LHR-DFW.

Why is AA21 a "special" flight number? For decades, AA21 (and eventually all of AA's trans-continental nonstops) featured First Class catering inspired by New York's famed "21 Club" restaurant. You can see a couple of the old, inflight menus at these sites:

CONTENTdm

https://thecarycollection.com/produc...w-string-spine
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 11:20 am
  #12  
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Still on AA1492 for my CMH-DFW in Oct.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 11:22 am
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Originally Posted by Antarius
That's pretty common on Hub-outstation-hub flights. It started when they Integrated the USAir flights into the AA schedule.
Tangential to the thread, but back several years ago, AA had a flight to Bolivia where the same plane flew MIA-LPB (La Paz)-VVI (Santa Cruz)-MIA as one continuous flight, and all the segments shared the same number. It was AA922, if I recall correctly.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 11:35 am
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Originally Posted by M60_to_LGA
Tangential to the thread, but back several years ago, AA had a flight to Bolivia where the same plane flew MIA-LPB (La Paz)-VVI (Santa Cruz)-MIA as one continuous flight, and all the segments shared the same number. It was AA922, if I recall correctly.
Staying on the tangent, I once flew on the BOM/HKG sector of PA2, the round-the-world flight. PA1 went the other way round.
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Old Aug 17, 2022, 11:50 am
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There are still some floating around on other airlines - e.g B6 777 BOS-LAS, B6 669 JFK-SJC (San Jose area code 669), KL 617 AMS-BOS (Boston area code 617), AS 412 SEA-PIT (Pittsburgh area code 412) - but a lot of them have been eliminated as this era of having too many flights to do a consistent numbering scheme around, especially in the US.
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