Farewell BA38/39, Hello BA88/89?!
 

I have just been informed that my return Beijing flights in October (BA38/39) have been cancelled and replaced with BA88/89. The departure and arrival times are only minimally different.

Does this mean BA38/39 is no more? Out of interest, why would BA go to the trouble of changing a long-standing flight number and replacing it with another (which if I am not mistaken used to be on Chengdu flights)? Seems very odd to me. It’s been 38/39 to Beijing for as long as I can remember.

Two quick ideas
a) after the long suspension of flights to BJS, coming back with a flight number that is considered lucky in Chinese culture,
b) keeping the 38/39 rotation open for a future return to PEK, and 88/89 for PKX specifically

A third possibility is, at the request of the airport authorities. If there is another inbound flight with a similar number arriving at a similar time, for example.

We've just had notification too. We were booked on BA39 on Sat 23rd May and have been rebooked on Sun 24th May on BA89, very inconvenient for us as we have a tour starting on 24th, will try speaking to BA...

Same with me on flight to Beijing. Got shunted a day later than originally booked, but a call to BAEC has sorted things out and now flying on originally booked date of travel.

I did enquire as to why the flight number has changed but no reason was given by the pleasant lady on the phone except that it corresponds with an aircraft type change.

Didnt BA88 used to be CTU?

M

Yes.

8 is a lucky number in China so I am wondering if that might have anything to do with it!

38 and 39 are just as good. Indeed, as death stalks the land, one might think of them as even better than 88 and 89 - you can't take your money with you when you die.

Mandarin speaker here, so versed in all the various numerical cultural meanings, but just checking the inner AV geek in me had remembered the CTU flight numbers!

M

Just seen in the "Extra 100000 Club World Reward Seats Released" thread this text:The destinations excluded from the 100,000 seat availability in the offer are: Chatam Islands, Cape Town, Durban, Hong Kong, Incheon, Kansai, Kuala Lumpur, Muscat, Nassau, Narita, Beijing, Beijing Daxing, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney

My bolding - Probably just an error - but maybe BA38/39 are being kept for occasional use at the older PEK airport? (he said hopefully ...)

surely to god this bit has got to be the bigger typo?! Or are BA planning on bringing back the convair?? (Did they ever have them?)

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Good point! Just wishful thinking on my part 😁

I would hazard a guess that the author started with IATA codes and converted to names, so rather than Chatham Islands (CHT), this was meant to be either CPT (most likely given the reference to Cape Town immediately after), or CLT (less likely, given no other US destinations are included).

No, this would only affect the callsign, not the flight number. Many flights already have different callsign/flt no. pairings for this reason. i.e. BAW939 = BA939, but BAW27G = BA727.

Is that the same everywhere in the world, though? ISTR that the BA25/BA26 pair (HKG) was renumbered to BA31/BA32 because of the possibility of callsign/flight number confusion over China, which IIRC does not permit callsigns that are not aligned with flight numbers.