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Same flight number for outbound and return

 
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 2:11 pm
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Same flight number for outbound and return

I noticed the other day that CO #1219 flies EWR-PBI at 8am and then returns, also as CO #1219 from PBI-EWR at 12pm. When looking up flight information on CO.com, you get:

Continental Flight 1219

There are multiple segments for this flight. To receive flight and gate status information, please specify a segment.

New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty) to West Palm Beach, FL (PBI)
West Palm Beach, FL (PBI) to New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty)
Is this common? How is this "allowed"? Seems quite confusing operationally.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 2:18 pm
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Becoming more common. Solution to a flight number shortage.

Also it's possible for both to be in the air at the same time.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 2:37 pm
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Originally Posted by dbaker
Also it's possible for both to be in the air at the same time.
Though not on the same callsign -- they'd have to modify that.

I've heard UA put a letter at the end of it sometimes.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 2:41 pm
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Originally Posted by channa
Though not on the same callsign -- they'd have to modify that.

I've heard UA put a letter at the end of it sometimes.
mduell ran the numbers on which letters are most likely: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/15488970-post93.html

Lots of Charlie, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Tango.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 3:31 pm
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Originally Posted by channa
Though not on the same callsign -- they'd have to modify that.

I've heard UA put a letter at the end of it sometimes.
EGF used to have 2 of the same callsigns in the air on opposite sides of the country all the time until they went from 3 digit operating flight numbers to 4.
ANZ does it almost daily with flight 1 in UK and NZ airspace at the same time.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 3:32 pm
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Originally Posted by channa
Though not on the same callsign -- they'd have to modify that.
That is incorrect. Although UAL will usually put a suffix alpha character, it is common to operate two in the ATC system at the same time.

http://flightaware.com/about/faq.rvt#twoflights
Why does FlightAware show two airlines flights operating simultaneously with the same flight number? Is that possible?

Unfortunately, this is not a bug. It seems that some airlines occasionally have duplicate flight numbers in the air at the same time with different origins and destinations. When tracking a flight that is in the air twice, the arrival/departure history will be accurate but the position, speed, and altitude will be unreliable.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 3:47 pm
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Originally Posted by dbaker
That is incorrect. Although UAL will usually put a suffix alpha character, it is common to operate two in the ATC system at the same time.

http://flightaware.com/about/faq.rvt#twoflights

Flight number and call sign are different though.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 3:51 pm
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Common practice for PMUA - especially United Express segments. I guess it wasn't as common on PMCO.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 4:01 pm
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Originally Posted by channa
Flight number and call sign are different though.
False.

Source: I write air traffic monitoring software and manage an ICAO call sign and can assign flight numbers.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 5:51 pm
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9700; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.668 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

This is really annoying as it drives all kinds of third-party status tracking tools (WorldMate/TripIt) nuts. Wish they wouldn't.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 7:15 pm
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Originally Posted by FlyinHawaiian
Common practice for PMUA - especially United Express segments. I guess it wasn't as common on PMCO.
Yeah, I noticed reference to this in a thread linked above in the PMUA forum from several years ago. (When I had zero interest whatsoever in reading that forum...although I still really don't...)

I think even direct one-stop flights were relatively uncommon on CO. Let alone a EWR-EWR itinerary with a stop in PBI.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 7:57 pm
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Originally Posted by ijgordon
Yeah, I noticed reference to this in a thread linked above in the PMUA forum from several years ago. (When I had zero interest whatsoever in reading that forum...although I still really don't...)

I think even direct one-stop flights were relatively uncommon on CO. Let alone a EWR-EWR itinerary with a stop in PBI.
I guess we can chalk up another change to the way PMUA did things. So much for the conspiracy theories.
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 8:01 pm
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Originally Posted by Air Houston
I guess we can chalk up another change to the way PMUA did things. So much for the conspiracy theories.
I don't think there's a choice in this though -- it's either do PMUA or run out of numbers!
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 8:28 pm
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Originally Posted by ijgordon
I noticed the other day that CO #1219 flies EWR-PBI at 8am and then returns, also as CO #1219 from PBI-EWR at 12pm. Is this common? How is this "allowed"? Seems quite confusing operationally.
I noticed an interesting instance of this earlier today. Screwing around on ITA, looking for mileage runs, I noticed that XXX-BWI has a lot of routings that go XXX-IAH-EWR-BWI. Still not a good MR... except that there's a CO flight that goes IAH-SNA and then SNA-EWR, with the same flight number. And on ITA, it prices out the same as any other IAH-EWR -- for about 2000 extra miles.

(I wasn't sufficiently motivated to see if the fare would actually book on .bomb or CO.com. Also, identity of XXX is left as an exercise for the sufficiently motivated reader).
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Old Jan 5, 2012 | 8:44 pm
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Originally Posted by QBK
I noticed an interesting instance of this earlier today. Screwing around on ITA, looking for mileage runs, I noticed that XXX-BWI has a lot of routings that go XXX-IAH-EWR-BWI. Still not a good MR... except that there's a CO flight that goes IAH-SNA and then SNA-EWR, with the same flight number. And on ITA, it prices out the same as any other IAH-EWR -- for about 2000 extra miles.

(I wasn't sufficiently motivated to see if the fare would actually book on .bomb or CO.com. Also, identity of XXX is left as an exercise for the sufficiently motivated reader).
Hmm, dunno about IAH-SNA-EWR, but I do see the direct flight IAH-CLE-EWR that nets an extra 191 miles for an elite member and is a permitted component of an -iah-ewr- routing: LAX-IAH-CLE-EWR-BWI is allowed on a UA K fare (but not the equivalent CO fare with -IAH-EWR- routing).
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