FAA1996

I'm in AA 3389 tomorrow and the app just sent me a bunch of notification about time changes. However the app still shows the original departure time but EF says there are 2 flights AA 3389 operating tomorrow, one at 10 and another at 10:12. Seems like a recipe for confusi�n at the airport.

FAA1996

Flightaware shows only 1 flight tomorrow at 10:00AM which is 12 minutes before my scheduled time. Confused 🤔

javabytes

Yesterday�s flight got diverted back to TPA, and delayed by an entire day rather than cancelling.

Two flights with the same flight number, going out ten minutes apart, from two gates practically right next to each other� that�s totally not going to confuse anyone at the airport tomorrow�

KBMIFlyer

You mean today's flight (the one scheduled for 5/10) but the rest of what you have is correct. Today's (5/10) flight 3389 is delayed until tomorrow 10:00 am, tomorrow's (5/11) flight 3389 is scheduled at 10:12 am as planned.

Unusual for a flight to be delayed for 24 hours, especially so close to a hub.

FAA1996

Ok, that makes sense, but I'm sure there will be plenty of chaos at the gates tomorrow. I thought in cases like this the delayed/rescheduled flight was given a different number?

dw

I bet they change it before departure. Will be too confusing for ATC, right?

lougord99

It will certainly have another number as far as what is given to ATC . 2 flights from the same airline are not allowed to be in the air at the same time with the same number.

FAA1996

It's already a cluster, keep getting messages on the app that it's canceled, back on, chose another flight, etc.

KBMIFlyer

For ATC purposes one of the flights will get a letter added to the end it to distinguish from the other one.

FAA1996

Well, I can't check in online and EXP agent says they can't check me in either but flight is "operating". AA.com won't let me see resevation and takes me to a "choose another flight page". Remember, I'm booked originally on tomorrow's flight, not today's flight which was moved to tomorrow and apparently canceled. I'm shooting for a 10:12 departure, if not I guess a refund and fly another airline into FLL or drive. I have a QR flight to DOH late tomorrow night.

flyerCO

At some point everybody on the flight should be automatically moved to a new AA9999 flight number. ATC doesn't allow 2 flights to operate with same flight number at same time. Someone has to go in and setup the new flight in system 1st. Sometime overnight I would bet the app will update to new flight number.

Herb687

Not necessarily. In fact, given that the original flight number was 4 digits, I'm not sure that ATC computer systems can handle a total of 8 characters (ENY3389B). We have a few ATCs here in FT so perhaps they can chime in on whether the 7-character limitation still exists in their systems.

More likely would be the flight operates with an entirely different flight number for ATC purposes. There is no requirement that the filed flight number with ATC match what the airline uses for passenger service purposes. In fact, there was a time when UA routinely filed and operated certain segments of flights like UA816 as UAL8130 for ATC purposes.

Or, as discussed upthread, could also cancel MQ3389/10 and move everyone to extra section MQ9876/11 though this seems like a lot more work than simply creating a new "fake" flight number in dispatch and operational systems only and leaving it as MQ3389/10 in passenger service systems.

KBMIFlyer

To close this loop, it appears Fridays (5/10) AA3389 was ultimately cancelled, and the original plane will end up operating as a ferry flight to DFW later today as flight 9868. Today's (5/11) flight 3389 operated as scheduled, hope the OP had a successful trip.

zdcatc12

Correct. I have been retired for 10 years, but seven characters is still the call sign/registration limitation. I am not sure if they still do it this way, but when I was working, this flight would be AAL3389 on the passenger side, but on the ATC side, the call sign probably is ENY389. Again, it was ten years ago, but the feeder airlines would never use the parent four digit part of the call sign as theirs. It would only be the last three digits of the four..

steve64

My data points are old, but from working AA Ops DFW 30 years ago ....

A 3 digit flight that needs to be 'stubbed' will have a "P" appended to the flight number for ATC purposes.
That doesn't work for a 4 digit number, so the 1st digit is dropped. IE: 3389 becomes 389P
This is only for ATC purposes (filing the flight plan, the callsign etc). The Gate Agents will be clueless about this.

If a stubbed flight needs to be stubbed (or in the example where 3389 was stubbed as 389P and then the "real" 389 also needs to be stubbed) then the suffix is "T" (if I remember correctly because that's rare). I think "R" and "S" are the next in line but don't recall that ever happening.

The most common reason for 'stubbing' a flight (and probably how the term 'stub' came about) is when the inbound is late enough to significantly delay the outbound, yet the station has a plane & crew to operate the outbound on-time (common at hubs). Said outbound will be stubbed and depart on-time before the inbound's arrival.

Overnight delays are rare. In my days I think such a flight is more likely to be cancelled (not operated at all). If we were going to operate it anyhow, then it's still likely to be cancelled and tomorrow's flight will be set up as an extra section and a new flight number in the 8000-9000 range. The 'flifo' for the cancelled flight should have a notation on the DFW-XXX CXLD entry showing the new flight number/date.
As pure speculation, I'm gonna say today such a flight would be stubbed vs an extra section. I say this cuz I imagine the instant the original flight (number) is cancelled evreyone's SmartPhone is going to get that notification without any info on the/new/extra flight tomorrow. In today's world, I think it's more intuitive to simply use the same flight number (as a a stub).

A little off topic ... I've recently have had 2 DL flights that were delayed overnight. In both cases, as far as the passenger perspective, the same flight number was maintained with a really loooong delay.
Also in both cases, the flights departed within 15 minutes of the ETD we were given the day before.