Kacee

There appear to have been two iterations of UA59 today, operated by two different 77Ws . . . .



http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N2135U


http://​​​​​​​http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N2639U

WineCountryUA

Make-up flight for the missed flights yesterday/weekend due to snowing in FRA.

Spitcool

my friend was on this flight. apparently it was a point of contention with ATC to allow that flight with the same flight number to go. maybe not 'allow' but 'how to handle'

jsloan

?? Really? It's extremely common* -- in the US, anyway -- for there to be multiple flights with the same flight number in the air at the same time. When there's any confusion, a suffix is added to one or more of the flights for purposes of disambiguation (e.g., flight UA59A or flight UA59T -- I seem to remember that UA likes to use 'Tango' a lot). Perhaps German ATC had a problem with it.

* No, seriously. Most airlines will operate multiple segments with the same flight number -- e..g, UA511 operates as BOS-IAD, then IAD-ORD, and then ORD-AUS. On Southwest, these flights are typically operated with the same plane; on other airlines, they're not. (Today, UA511 is operated by aircraft #4626 and then #4619 twice; Thursday, it's operated by three different planes). If there's a delay for the incoming flight, the outbound may still operate on time, at which point you'll have two flights with the same number in the air at the same time, usually near the same airport.

Kacee

???Really? IME it is not at all common for UA to operate two versions of the exact same flight, same city pairs, with same flight number on the same day. Ordinarily, UA would operate the make-up flight with a 2000 flight number to avoid confusing its systems.

This has completely confused UA's systems. For example, the App thinks the aircraft which will operate UA837 SFO-NRT this morning is still at ORD.

Further, there appears to have been a diversion on one of these flights to ORD, which is apparently why Flightaware shows the first departing from Fond du Lac rather than FRA.

jsloan

That is much less common, but simply having two flights with the same number in the air at the same time is normal. I was surprised at the comment that ATC had issues with it.

UA should have cancelled the original flight and operated a replacement segment as you suggest. I can't think of any reason not to do so besides artificially inflating the completion rate at the cost of depressing the average arrival statistics. The DOT should probably put in some kind of cutoff -- any flight more than XX hours late is considered to be cancelled. That would eliminate the motivation for these shenanigans. If I were a passenger on a flight that was delayed until the next day, I'd consider it to be cancelled personally.

Kacee

There was likely a miscommunication exactly who the issue was with and what it was. But this has obviously caused some issues with UA systems.

I have friends on UA837 on my GPUs today and find the confusion about where their aircraft is mildly unnerving.

narvik

I don't quite understand. With your example (UA511), these segments/flight numbers aren't in the air at the same time, nor do they share the same DEP and ARR city. Well, I see in the rest of your description it IS possible to have them up in the air at the same time under those circumstances. INTERESTING....didn't know.

BlueZebra

It seems for awhile, when two flights with the same number were operating, the "Tango" designator was used. So one flight would have been United 59Tango.

Also, for a while, UA 1728, OGG-SFO was actually two flights...one leaving late morning, or very early afternoon, the second leaving about 7pm.

rob_flies_ua

Here's the old thread on tango suffixes: Duplicate UA flight numbers; flights with letter suffixes [merged threads]

garkster

I agree, I've always seen/heard a 2xxx for the make-up.

Then there's the situation I saw yesterday, tracking our incoming aircraft. We were on UA 1728 OGG-SFO, so I was tracking incoming UA1725, and FlightRadar24 showed two flights, one following the other, both the same aircraft all the way from SFO to OGG! No IRROPS, so bug or system interface issue? Looking at the history today, it's normal.

fl1ger

Moin!

They use 2xxx when they cancel the flight. I believe what they did in Frankfurt was to delay the flight twenty-something hours.

So long
-Ralf