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Airlines are running out of 4-digit flight numbers
- thanatos519 2y ago[flagged]
- dataflow 2y ago> Easy solution: Pivot your entire business to high speed rail so we can continue to live on this planet. > Air travel should be for medical emergencies only. Some nuance would be nice here. Although high-speed rail from Hawaii to Australia would be a blast.
- warkdarrior 2y agoHawaii to Australia will use a high-speed sailboat.
- mrinfinitiesx 2y agoCurrently in Hawaii. Surfs up bruh. Mahalo.
- readyman 2y ago[dead]
- gruez 2y agoChina is probably the best case scenario for high speed trains. They have high population density to support train networks, virtually no opposition from NIMBYs, and low construction costs. Yet high speed trains there operate at a loss[1], and airplanes are still competitive there. If high speed rail doesn't work there, how could you seriously claim we should switch all air travel to high speed rail? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#Profitability_and_debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#Profi...
- drewmcarthur 2y agothe problem with comparing these things by their ticket prices is that markets don’t consider externalities. making and fueling a plane might allow me to sell tickets cheaper than a train, but only if we ignore the cost of the carbon output (since neither the flyer nor the airline pay for this, but society at large does) i wonder how this comparison would shake out if you included a carbon tax that effectively measured the cost of these trips on the globe.
- gruez 2y agoA SF -> NY round trip direct flight costs $362 and emits 554kg co2e according to google flights. The price of carbon by various emissions trading systems vary from less than $10 to almost $100 per tonne[1]. Of course, you could argue that such systems aren't fully capturing the cost of carbon, and therefore using prices for those systems would be an underestimate. Direct air capture literally extracts carbon from the air to sequester underground, which provides an upper bound on the cost of carbon. Climeworks says it only costs around $600/tonne today[2], with them and various startups claiming they can get it down to $100-$200 in the future. Taking all those numbers into account, here's how much airline fares would increase if carbon cost is factored in: cheap ETS ($10): 1.5% expensive ETS ($100): 15% future DAC ($200): 31% current DAC: ($600): 92% Of course this doesn't factor in the cost of the electricity used to power the trains, which would at least partially be from carbon emitting sources. Given that, and the fact that building high speed rail is fraught with uncertainty and cost overruns, the highest fare increase you could plausibly argue for is the "future DAC" figure. This may be enough to advocate for banning air travel for short to medium length journeys, but I doubt long haul flights are going anywhere. [1] https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20231007_FNC825.png https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=8... [2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/swiss-company-hoping-capture-1-global-co2-emissions-2025/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/swiss-company-hoping-capture-1-g...
- anonfordays 2y agoIs the concept of NIMBY even possible in China considering the state owns the land?
- neither_color 2y agoThat's a bold stance when first world countries depend on immigrants who need to take intercontinental flights to see their families every year. Let them eat rail.
- MeteorMarc 2y agoGive the flights a 128 bit number, so we can give each grain of sand on Earth its own flight number.
- gruez 2y agoSounds like flight GUIDs.
- poikroequ 2y agoI'm pretty sure they want to keep flight numbers short because that's how passengers identify their flight. As a passenger, you wouldn't want to be reading signs with 40 digit flight numbers. Attention passengers, flight 3467548742468759027225995322800483168368 to Dallas is now boarding.
- netsharc 2y agoHaha, UUIDs for flights.. that'd be obnoxious. Maybe use QR-Codes to store/display the UUIDs, and everyone should walk around with Apple helmets (what are they called?) that scan these codes as you walk around in the airport... (Facetious idea)
- karmakaze 2y agoIPv6 format could at least abbreviate.
- RiverCrochet 2y ago::1 is you entering then leaving the terminal immediately.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> I'm pretty sure they want to keep flight numbers short because that's how passengers identify their flight. That wouldn't describe any passenger I've ever known, including myself. We identify our flight by destination and departure time. Airport boards are conveniently sorted by departure time. In case of a tie, I'd fall back to airline, also indicated separately on the board, but a tie over destination and departure time has never happened.
- Havoc 2y agoThe entire aviation industry feels like it is in need of a tech stack 100% rebuild. Systems like Sabre are 60+ years old.
- tengbretson 2y agoI don't disagree, but in 2024 where on earth could you staff large enough team to do such a task with developers that are self-disciplined enough to do it safely?
- gjsman-1000 2y agoHeck, where do you get developers who aren’t convinced it should be rewritten in JavaScript?
- toomuchtodo 2y agoA collaboration between the US Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy. Lots of solid engineering out of Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia Labs. Make it a system owned and operated by the FAA.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
- maxsilver 2y agoWouldn't the easy solution be to use two sets of letters for IATA coded flights for the same airline? Something like "DL1234" and "DZ1234" for Delta? I know a lot of the two-letter codes are claimed too, and I'm sure there must be some reason this wouldn't work OK, but it would seem like they they would each have at least one code left over from the various airlines they've acquired over the years? If an American Airlines regional flight started with "TW1234" again, for example, I don't think it would break the world.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoThis solution is so simple it's what they will do. But only after spending millions researching every other solution.
- ronsor 2y agoAnd by "researching" we mean overpaying consultants who will do absolutely nothing useful.
- Dban1 2y agoi wanna be a consultant
- poopsmithe 2y agoyou can be a consultant!
- hiddencost 2y agoIt's honestly really unpleasant spending that much of your life hustling people. I quit after a year because I hated having to hustle to make payroll.
- trustno2 2y agoYou can be, the consultancies are hiring. But you need to up your PowerPoint skills.
- sleepytimetea 2y agoCan they switch to a radix of 36 instead of decimal numbers ?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tamimio 2y ago> The computer systems airlines use are built on top of systems that are built on top of systems that date back sixty years. It means it’s the time to upgrade the system.
- xena 2y agoThat's like changing the definition of UTF-8. You have no idea what is depending on the exact byte order of everything spooling out from the core.
- a3n 2y agoHexadecimal?
- jbandela1 2y ago> Except they don’t. American Airlines, Delta, and United are running out of flight numbers, and nobody knows what to do about it. All of the above mentioned airlines are the size they are because of mergers. Why don’t they use the IATA codes of the airlines they absorbed. For example Delta merged with Northwestern. In addition to DL, they could also use NW. American merged with USAirways. They could use US in addition to AA. United merged with Continental. They could use CO in addition to UA.
- nradov 2y agoThat would be a recipe for confusion among pilots and controllers. They rely on visual sighting of aircraft for some operations and have to maneuver in relation to each other so if the livery doesn't match the IATA code then that increases the risk of error.
- petesergeant 2y agoAll the baby AirAsias have virtually identical livery with different codes (FD, QZ, Z2), doesn't seem to be an issue
- bux93 2y agoSince their fleets are based from different home airports, the inflight meal selection is different for FD/QZ/Z2. So, it actually comes in handy for passengers; no surprises.
- mlyle 2y agoHere we are talking about running out of codes due to codeshares; the planes do not identify themselves this way. But, similar reasons: mixing branding is going to cause confusion (codeshares already do this enough without injecting a “third” airline into the mix).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- HumblyTossed 2y agoSwitch to hex.
- SoftTalker 2y agoOr just use letters in addition to numbers in the flight number. It woudn't take any more space in the data field, but chances are that a lot of them are coded as PIC 9(4) instead of PIC X(4).
- linotype 2y ago5 digits instead of 4?
- nilram 2y agoThe amount of travel industry software is huge, and a mix of ancient and new. Makes sense, but would take years.
- axelthegerman 2y agoEasy, add a leading 0... Oh wait they probably store them as integers, but then it wouldn't matter how many digits... Oh wait some places it's fixed length strings
- manquer 2y agotrailing zero works with integer storage, i.e. old 1234 becomes 12340 and new flight number could be 12345. Mentally if the number has significance for sort order etc, you can think they are like decimals they would be 1234.0 and 1234.5, when not set in older systems it can be ignored i.e. 1234.0 is same as 1234.
- prmoustache 2y agoShouldn't they had started thinking about that 20 years ago as to be ready now?
- jcranmer 2y agoThere's a decent chance that several important airline systems are storing things in fixed-width fields, so that, e.g., the flight number is columns 25-28.
- joshu 2y agogive the really big airlines some numeric codes that start with the right number. For example, give Delta D7 as well. Then they can have DL1234 and D71234 etc
- kalleboo 2y agoI don't even understand the point of code-share flight numbers. The first thing I do when I see one is look up the original flight number. Most flight search engines will also show you the original carrier. Why not just get rid of them and book on the original flight number? Is it needed somehow in their systems to know how a flight was booked or what flights are eligible? Can that be fixed instead of the flight numbers?
- stephen_g 2y agoGenerally it's easier to book a trip with legs on different carriers if they have a codeshare arrangement, because you can just do it as a single itinerary through one carrier's web site. Otherwise you often need a travel agent to be able to put together the itinerary (that's not strictly necessary though, just the way they make it work so no technical reason they couldn't just offer non codeshare flight numbers) The other thing is airline points/status - sometimes you get no status points/miles on non-codeshare partner flight numbers but you do on the codeshare flight numbers.
- kalleboo 2y agoI guess my question is, is it easier to upgrade the carrier website flight booking engines and mileage programs to deal with the original carrier flight numbers rather than upgrading all of the systems across the industry to deal with a larger name space for flight numbers universally?
- bruce511 2y agoAlso, connections. If it's a connecting flight, and the incoming flight is running late, then the airline "sorts you out". Basically they know sboit your connection and make a plan. I've been on a plane out of Heathrow that waited for a 30-min late incoming flight. I've also been on a late flight where my connection has been rebooked for me because we arrived late. If you book "2 tickets" you're basically a no-show to the first flight, and you're on your own dealing with that airline.
- skissane 2y ago
- zeagle 2y agoClearly the successor solution is to use eight groups of four hexadecimal digits each, separated by colons. Then each individual seat and peanut could be addressed to it's final destination. More seriously the solution suggested of giving the 3 companies other unused prefixes like D* U* and A* to use with their codeshares and non rev flights to start seems the easiest.
- guardiangod 2y agoDone forget to have a secondary identifier to further divide the seat. I recommend using a short to represent the 65536 possible slices a seat can split. Then on the ticket, there would be an extension section that tells you the alias of the person that is about to board. We can call it SNI or Sitter Name Indicator. Another section could be an indicator if the rider is alive when boarding. We can call the extension a heartbeat extension.
- Charon77 2y agoGiven the history of airlines I'm not quite sure if you're joking or not. Sounds plausible ngl
- jachee 2y agoI know explaining a joke always makes it super funny, but… this is a NetEng joke about IPv6 being overbuilt.
- dotancohen 2y agoIPv6 is seen and used directly by professionals, not the general public. Overbuilding it in the sense being mocked made sense.
- CookieCrisp 2y agoWhich explains why professionals have so eagerly adopted it over the last two decades
- nxobject 2y agoRecord-oriented storage and SABRE strikes again!
- gentle 2y agoI love that so many people here think they can think about the problem for 10 seconds and come up with a solution that hasn't already been considered a thousand times and discarded.
- Grimblewald 2y agoBut have they considered 5 digit numbers :^)
- colimbarna 2y agoI can't believe they haven't started using three digits and an emoji.
- Scoundreller 2y agoNo checksum???
- dayjaby 2y agoThe emoji is the checksum
- throwaway2037 2y agoAgree. This type of article is classic nerd-snipe fodder for the HN masses.
- DidYaWipe 2y agoAny well-written article should anticipate, ask, and answer the obvious questions. For example: Why not use alphanumeric characters? And if the answer isn't known by the sources the writer quotes, the writer should say so.
- layer8 2y agoAnswered in this comment by “hagbard celine” under the article: https://viewfromthewing.com/airlines-are-running-out-of-flight-numbers-and-they-dont-know-what-to-do-about-it/#comment-5878491 https://viewfromthewing.com/airlines-are-running-out-of-flig...
- throwaway290232 2y ago[dead]
- angled 2y agoObviously the solution is airline code + iata source airport + iata dest airport + airline scheduled flight # for the day/week UA-LGA-LAX-001 LH-LHR-FRA-012 /obviously/
- angled 2y agoThis also doesn’t take up any more data, the pnrs have this info anyway, it’s just reordering it UA001 from LGA to LAX LH012 from LHR to FRA
- usr1106 2y agoI remember my wife was on a charter flight with 3 initial letters many years ago (in Europe). And when I tried to look up the arrival, many systems could not handle the flight number. Now slightly unsure whether I did not dream up the whole episode, I did a web search and found https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/157429/what-is-the-official-flight-id-syntax-for-a-iata-formatted-flight-code-with-spa https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/157429/what-is-th... So IATA seems to have formally introduced that in 1994. (Whether they have abandoned it again later I don't know.) So big airlines could just get a additional 3rd letter(s). The first 2 would not have to change, which makes it easier for humans.
- cett 2y agoIt's more likely that the flight in question was using the three letter ICAO code in its passenger facing flight number. I have never known a three character IATA code to be used despite it technically being within the specification.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Kon-Peki 2y ago> So for us, and other two big competitors, we found workarounds for it. And I think the technology investment would be too great… The is where we all say “not my problem” and don’t give it another thought. Don’t waste your time on these guys.
- edward 2y agoThis is the tipping point that will make the world switch from passenger flights to high-speed rail.
- akira2501 2y agoI've taken Amtrak. It's honestly not bad service wise. It is slow, has the lowest priority on a lot of track, has almost no backup options if something goes wrong on the train, and has some very old equipment in service. If it were just twice as fast, was given priority or had it's own tracks, and had enough trains that a following one could pick you up in a disaster, and without random bedrooms that just smell like the 1970s, I would take it almost exclusively. Otherwise.. sadly.. Amtrak is for when I don't actually care if I arrive at my destination or not. If I'm lucky I get where I'm going and most of the time I get a steak on the way.
- ars 2y agoMaybe when a train costs less than an airplane ticket. But right now the train costs more and takes longer. Why would I do that?
- prmoustache 2y agoYou usually need to factor the whole trip as most trains start and stop in city centers while airports are sometimes very remote from the cities. YMMV but where I live, I need to either pay for the parking at the airport, have someone shuttle me or take a taxi/regional train/bus to the airport. For domestic use in my country, plane is competitive on paper, meaning some flights are much cheaper than train tickets. However the cheapest flights are the early and late flights which means regional train/bus to go to the airport are not an option. Usually you don't want to annoy friend/family very late in the morning/night because...well that's kind of rude. So you have to either use your own car and pay more for the parking than the actual plane ticket, or take a taxi that will also cost more than the plane ticket. Congratulations! The cost of your trip has already doubled or tripled from the advertised price! Now if you haven't thought of making your own sandwich add the aditionnal cost of buying food + drink at the airport and you will be adding again more than the original price of the one-way plane ticket! And that is without even mentionning the shady tactics of some cheap companies. Take a ryanair flight for instance, and once in a while they will ask you to check your luggage in one of their bagage check gauge and charge you whenever you have a bag that cannot stand upright on its own even if it fits the gauge and will force you to pay an aditionnal 70€ fee. As for the time, it is also something where you have to consider the sum of all. My rule of thumb is regardless where I am flying, I know I will lose pretty much half a day. When doing sub 3h flights you are usually spending as much or more time commuting in/out of the airport and in the airport than flying. On the other hand the train station will allow you to take your own drinks, and even if you didn't have time to make yourself a good sandwich, and don't want to pay for the more expensive options at railway station you will always find some cheap takeaways or supermarket close to it. The railyway station is usually in a city center as well which may be more convenient in many situations and you can reach the railway station 5 minutes from the departure time and you will still be fine. Once you have factored all that, the train can often end up being the cheaper option, as well as the fastest one if this is an high speed train and you don't have to change train.
- Ozzie_osman 2y agoI hate out-and-back flight numbers (where they reuse the same flight number for a flight and for its reverse). It makes it really confusing to actually find the flight status and such. Separately I also find code-sharing slightly confusing, especially if you're trying to find out who's actually operating your flight for things like checkin counter, etc.
- Animats 2y agoYeah, it's like the time the NASDAQ first had more than 65535 tradeable things.
- hans_castorp 2y agoThe headline is a bit misleading. Because it's not "airlines" in general, but: > and it’s really only a problem for three airlines in the world.
- daemin 2y agoIt's 3 airlines in the USA that have this problem because they want to add more codeshare flights that other airlines are running. I don't think there will be enough motivation from the rest of the world to solve this problem any time soon.
- pixl97 2y agoAmerican Airlines has the most flights of any airline on the planet. It's kinda like saying "The person that spends $1 a day and the person that spends $1 million a day have the same standing to a business".
- fareesh 2y agoCan they have another prefix in addition to "AA"?
- Ekaros 2y agoToo much consolidation? Time to split up them again?
- bobthepanda 2y agoCode shares are between airlines that generally operate in different markets. Delta code sharing with Air France may limit direct competition on the few international routes they share, but in general it is also good for passengers because Delta cannot operate flights wholly within Europe and Air France cannot operate domestic US flights. Code sharing allows a passenger to buy one itinerary complete with rescheduling for missed connections and correctly handled baggage.
- rurban 2y agoThey already have a better solution. Did you see AAA777 to Las Vegas. So they are able to add alpha to numerics, when needed. Return flights sharing the number? Why not.
- lxgr 2y agoAre you sure that’s a real flight number, and you’re not confusing it with AAL777 (which would be AA’s ICAO code, AA being IATA)? I don’t think alphanumeric flight numbers are a thing currently.
- chgs 2y agoAF296Q was a flight which crashed in 1988 They are rare though
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoThey are not very rare. Letter suffixes are very common in Europe to avoid potential ambiguity. However they do not change the actual flight number portion. https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/clearing-up-call-sign-confusion/ https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/clearing-up-call-sign-con...
- chgs 2y agoCall signs have letters sure, but while I think I’ve seen letters on departure boards they are rare.
- schoen 2y agoIs that meant to be a slot machine reference? "May all your slot machines come up sevens"?
- Miiko 2y ago> Did you see AAA777 to Las Vegas. That's just a typo in the article, the actual flight number is AA777 https://www.airportia.com/flights/aa777/dallas-fort-worth/las-vegas/ https://www.airportia.com/flights/aa777/dallas-fort-worth/la...
- blahedo 2y agoI'm remembering the ISBN switch, which I thought would throw off some older systems—and it probably did, but it took so long to happen that the transition ended up being pretty smooth. The key element was that for a solid ten years or so, every book had both an old-style and a new-style ISBN (and possibly some still do). I'm hoping that behind the scenes they really are looking at a better plan than just "work around it", but the workaround can buy them time; and if their operations plan is strong, they'll be able to roll it out very slowly in parallel while all their back-end stuff gets upgraded. (This would require some aspect of the new system to make it immediately distinguishable from the old one, e.g. three-letter airlines or whatever, but that's a minor detail compared to all the other stuff they'd have to work out.) Bonus points if knowing the "old" number lets you algorithmically derive the new one somehow, and vice versa, to make the transition period easier. :)
- philjohn 2y agoI still love the bit of book trivia that since 13 digit EAN's start with a country code, you can convert an ISBN-10 into an ISBN-13 by prepending it with the code for "book land" - 978. (I worked on Library Management Software for 6 years).
- bloak 2y agoYou also have to recompute the check digit, of course, for example: 0131103628 -> 9780131103627
- philjohn 2y agoAh yes, you're indeed correct - I forgot that :D I also used to know what most of the MARC 21 (library interchange format) codes stood for ... but that has now been purged from the memory banks ... except 245 $c - statement of responsibility https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd245.html https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd245.html
- slightwinder 2y ago> I'm hoping that behind the scenes they really are looking at a better plan than just "work around it", Airline-IT is mostly just a big pile of workarounds to cope with limitations from 40+ year old systems. I've worked with reservation systems and seen their modernizations through the years. Modern xml-formats shoving megabytes of data for every reservation. They are very wasteful, generously designed with redundant fields, long feature-lists and all kind of annoying shit. But at the end, your whole booking can still drip on the passenger's name being one character too long. Even after decades and multiple iterations of interfaces, at the core the systems today still depend on whatever someone in the 1960s considered as good enough for the US-market.
- NeoTar 2y agoI wonder if I see an earlier version of this problem - I take the flight BA988 from London to Berlin a few times a year, and in some systems it will appear as BA0988 - possibly because some can handle 3 digit and some neee 4 digit flight numbers.
- roshankhan28 2y agoas you are a person who takes the same flight frequently , wont it be easier having the same flight number ? the flight companies should just make the flight numbers fixed for a fixed route, like local buses.
- NeoTar 2y agoI'm a little confused by your comment - Airlines do re-use flight numbers - BA988 is always the BA flight from LHR to BER at around 19:30 (i.e. there will be a BA988 today, there was one yesterday, and there will be another tomorrow). But to be honest, I'd also say it's not that useful for me personally. It's a lot easier to remember your destination and fight-time - (i.e. I'm on the 19:30 to Berlin) than a flight-number, and only once do I think there was ever the potential for confusion). [You experience may vary, especially if you are are used to flying a busy flight corridor.]
- roshankhan28 2y agotrue that
- blitzar 2y agoI have carefully read the entire thread and nobody has said the answer yet. Blockchain Ai.
- xipix 2y agoThe biggest challenge here isn't the tech/standards problem. It's what this signals for the future of the planet's climate.
- tgv 2y agoIndeed. Just reduce the number of flights already. That should give room in your 4-digit space.
- pmontra 2y agoIf it's a problem for only 3 airlines in the world, give them a new two letter code, if there are any of those codes left. So airline AA will start using also code ZZ for some of their flights. Travelers will be a little puzzled at first but they'll stop noticing soon. I sorted the airlines by two letter codes [1] and the list is pretty busy but hex 20 for Space is still available. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes
- ekaryotic 2y agoyup this is the cheapest solution. don't know why anyone would suggest a different approach. i read the DL in delta's computers is hard coded so they can't change it, which could be problematic.
- yread 2y agoYou can do it like Easyjet. They have normal easyJet EZY, easyJet Switzerland S.A. EZS, easyJet Europe Gmbh EJU. Problem solved. OK they have a lot fewer planes than United but 99% of their flights are short (<3h) so they probably need similar number of flight numbers
- deanc 2y agoAnyone who’s worked doing any kind of IT for the aviation industry knows how much of a clusterf*ck the spec for PNR is. Flight codes are the least of the limitations there.
- amelius 2y agoWhy are they bothering passengers with flight numbers? If computers were like airplanes, programmers would show pointers to users.
- 11235813213455 2y agoMaybe the opportunity to raise price really high and save the planet
- jillesvangurp 2y agoA lot of the software used to coordinate this stuff is very ancient at this point. The fix is straightforward from a technical point of view but super complicated to implement because it involves replacing/fixing half a century old software systems in use in thousands of companies across the industry. Probably a lot of cobol and other crap that is still in use for this.
- pantulis 2y agoAnd if you thought flight numbers are complicated, wait until you see what is in the future for PNR codes: https://www.iata.org/en/programs/airline-distribution/retailing/one-order/ https://www.iata.org/en/programs/airline-distribution/retail...
- heisenbit 2y agoMaybe, just maybe the solution is to stop flight code sharing. Having one flight under different numbers is confusing at best and feels misleading. Just imagine giving airlines more space to spam everyone with a magnitude more numbers. Just picture announcement boards at airports…
- jll29 2y ago> Here’s the full answer, along with how they triage the problem – for instance by assigning the same flight number to more than one flight a day (although that means they need for it to be flights that would never both be in the air at the same time, such as where the same plane is used and can’t reasonably be substituted) This sounds like it's calling for trouble! Whenever I hear that any IDs could be "recycled", I make a mental note to replace the person making such a proposal from all teams that I am involved in. The worst is I once was put to work on a system where they even recycled GUIDs... I thought "which part of GUID do you not understand, the G part or the U part?" (from which it follows they also don't really understand what ID means)...
- snapcaster 2y ago>Whenever I hear that any IDs could be "recycled", I make a mental note to replace the person making such a proposal from all teams that I am involved in. Couldn't agree more, not even interested in debating it
- regular_trash 2y agoThe misconception here is that Flight numbers are not treated as IDs. A unique key to any flight is the composite of number/origin/departure date. And it's mostly a holdover from legacy systems airlines are entrenched in, so there isn't much else anyone can do here short of completely reinventing the mainframe reservation systems and heavily refactoring all the pieces that depend on it.
- worthless-trash 2y ago> isn't much else anyone can do here short of completely reinventing the mainframe reservation systems and heavily refactoring all the pieces that depend on it. This is commonly called "software maintenance". I believe that most places have contracts to keep software up to date for changing specifications/operating systems.
- RaftPeople 2y ago> Couldn't agree more, not even interested in debating it Given that the industry has rejected the natural but very expensive solution, and that airlines exist in a connected space, this information is shared with partners and external parties so they can't just change their internal systems, it doesn't seem like there are too many solutions. One solution could be to assign multiple airline codes per airline, but I'm not sure of the downsides. Do you have a solution you think would work?
- andix 2y agoWhat would stop the airlines to use more than one airline code? For example for American Airlines not only to use flight numbers like AAxxxx but also ABxxxx. AB is assigned to Air Berlin, which went out of service in 2017. Edit: A1 seems to be unassigned, which might be even better, to not create confusions.
- alfalfasprout 2y agoThat's my hunch too (since you can basically forget anything like 5 digit numbers of alphanumeric due to old DBs that can't be migrated easily). Probably the issue is that lots of assumptions around AA exclusively being American Airlines is baked in somewhere. That said, it seems easier than any of the alternatives (and recycling seems excessively risky and confusing).
- wtcactus 2y agoI get constantly baffled at the amount of technical debt that goes on in civil aviation. The fact that no one just overhauls the system with backward compatibility and sets a deadline for the migration, is just insane for me. All these specific problems are solved, and in production (in freight for instance) for more than 2 decades now. But aviation just goes on with their 70s system.
- pixl97 2y agoTrucks are perfectly fine with waiting outside the freight hub if the transportation management software goes down and loses track of everything. A plane in the air is a ticking time bomb that needs to get on the ground before the fuel runs out. Two trucks being just feet away from each other at speed is perfectly fine. Two planes being within half a mile of each other when they shouldn't be is a critical emergency. Problems in 2D space are amazingly forgiving compared to those that occur in 3D space. The caution civil aviation has is because of the history of flying that is written in blood.
- alexpotato 2y agoMany years ago, I worked on a trading floor. The legacy trading system (X Windows/Solaris/C++ based) was originally written in a time where market volumes were low so you couldn't have more than 10,000 orders (due to a limit on the size of the order id field). As volumes increased in the late 2000's, there were days where we were in danger of running out of orders ids. The fix? The system generated order ids 7 days a week even if trading only happened 5 days so we "borrowed" order ids from Saturday.
- tremon 2y agoSounds like a great opportunity to limit the size of an airline and promote competition: each airline can't have more than 10,000 registered flights.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoI generally know better than to read the native comments on articles like this, but I've not really woken up yet. Are those merely stupid when they suggest using alphanumeric, or are they abominably stupid because the backend only allows numeric codes?
- willhackett 2y agoCode-sharing is a headache for customers. Trying to find your flight on a rotating screen is frustrating, and having a different flight number on your ticket compared to the actual flight is just confusing. We should do away with code-share numbers and use the operating airline’s flight number instead.
- yarrowy 2y agohow about they help jumpstart the economy and hire engineers to fix the problem?
- itchyouch 2y agoI wonder if they have enough 2 digit letters to expand their usages. Perhaps American Airlines could have both AA & AB, so they would then have 20k flight numbers to use?
- indus 2y agoIn 2010, Indian railways switched from a four-digit numbering system to five digits. They were running out of train numbers. Indian railways today operates 13,000 trains daily. There is a PDF that talks about the problem, the solution, exceptions, and a rollout plan. One fine day, IT systems seamlessly transitioned—-took some time to wipe the old numbers from passengers memories.
- akpa1 2y agoDo you have a link to the PDF?
- indus 2y agoI need to fish the exact one but this is the public cover of that https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directorate/coaching/Circulars/2%20five%20Digit%20Train%20no%20scheme%209_9_10.pdf https://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directora...
- Green-Man 2y agoI looked up the nickname of the author of the commentary. Now I feel recursion is still running inside my brain
- indus 2y agooh man! such a comment ;-)
- josephcsible 2y ago> assigning the same flight number to more than one flight a day (although that means they need for it to be flights that would never both be in the air at the same time, such as where the same plane is used and can’t reasonably be substituted) I thought this was already common on a lot of airlines. For example, tomorrow, Southwest flight 1861 goes from MDW to DAL from 1:55pm to 4:10pm, then from DAL to SNA from 4:50pm to 5:55pm, then from SNA to PHX from 6:30pm to 7:50pm. I was on two legs of a similar flight a few years ago, and I didn't even have to get off the plane at Love Field.
- pixl97 2y agoOne should note, this is why SW completely falls apart when mass weather delays or computer systems crashes occur. They have any number of 'serialized' components in their system that are efficient in optimal situations but degrade poorly.
- FerretFred 2y agoIt won't be a problem soon as airlines worldwide will obviously be scaling back flights due to climate change, right? ;) /s (just in case)
- todd8 2y agoTime for hexadecimal.
- lozf 2y agoUsing Hexadecimal instead gives over 6.5 times as many possibilities in the same 4 characters - should be more than adequate. I know airline systems have a lot of legacy code so it might be difficult, but at least logistically (having adequate space to print / display them), and for humans to deal with it's not too difficult.
- ASUfool 2y agoNot sure if I'd want the flight number DEAD.
- laweijfmvo 2y agoJust give each airline another prefix UA1234 -> UN1234.
- whalesalad 2y agoIPv6 is the answer: now boarding to Salt Lake: DAL:1050:0:0:0:5:600:300c:326
- quijoteuniv 2y agoStupid here, but how hard is to change it to alphabumerical?
- jmpwat 2y agothey're going to have to NAT them
- dangoodmanUT 2y ago"Oh no" * adds a 5th digit
- _def 2y ago... to every codebase, flip display and whatelse not in the world
- mise_en_place 2y agoPart of the problem is codesharing, you have to use two flight numbers for the same flight. The whole practice is confusing and I don't think it should be allowed, except in the rarest of circumstances. The seat quality is also suspect at best, when you're not directly buying from the operating carrier.
- prima-facie 2y agoThey need NAT!
- surfingdino 2y ago"Four digits ought to be enough for everybody!" ... looks down at his hands...
- deniz_tekalp 2y agoif they re-use the flight number maybe they can add a letter suffix to it. e.g. 1555B?
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y agoThat's easy: fork the airline. Or have you run out of 2 letters too?
- franky47 2y agoI like how everyone is looking for technical solutions, where the trivial one is to reduce the number of flights. It's not like we're not in a climate crisis after all.
- webworker 2y agoSomeone introduce them to IPv6
- worthless-trash 2y agoThis software is goign to have a REAL problem in 2038. If they can't add a single digit field, they are going to have a problem with time_t.