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Enormous path dependance. There's a photo in that article that shows the problem: the flip-tab sign that has space for four numerical digits. I was thinking t
by gumby 2y ago
Enormous path dependance.
There's a photo in that article that shows the problem: the flip-tab sign that has space for four numerical digits. I was thinking they could just switch from 0-9 to 0-9A-Z but that photo showed why that would be a disaster.
Plus any solution has to be approved for use worldwide.
Fortunately the two-digit IATA codes have already switched to 0-9A-Z (e.g. JetBlue is B6) so allowing constrained airlines to use two codes should work fine.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- poopsmithe 2y agoHow many airports still have flip-tab signs? Do they need to stay? Aren't they adding to an already noisy area? What's their maintenance cost vs. a LCD? What's their energy consumption vs. a LCD?
- SoftTalker 2y ago[flagged]
- lotsoweiners 2y agoI do. I was just traveling about a month ago and the gate info had changed on the monitor but not on my phone and this was both ways. I always check the monitor and use that as the system of record over my phone.
- ricketyricky 2y agoI do. "The phone" is just another hassle one doesn't want to take care of on long-distance travel. Paper tickets just work, can't say that for the login for travel / rewards apps when you think you were already logged in when being offline.
- OJFord 2y agoSame problem on LCD/with the font you use though - those displays are dense, and designed around room for 'AB1234'. Confusing to have it scroll when it already rotates into some other information too.
- selimthegrim 2y agoI think Russia still does.
- gumby 2y agoI don’t know about the USA but there are likely millions of them deployed around the world, and working fine.
- antonkochubey 2y ago>What's their energy consumption vs. a LCD? Zero when they're not flipping, and close to zero when they are. Even under direct sunlight, to overcome which LCDs need >100W / square meter.
- cowsandmilk 2y ago> I was thinking they could just switch from 0-9 to 0-9A-Z but that photo showed why that would be a disaster. I guarantee those signs could easily be updated for that. They’re built to allow replacement of each cell and routinely do so since cells break. Switching to 0-9A-Z would take one night for them.
- eszed 2y agoTo change the physical tabs, sure. What about whatever drives the tab-switching? Wouldn't surprise me if it's a 1980s solid-state something-or-other with a baked-in 0-9 constraint.
- prmoustache 2y ago> Plus any solution has to be approved for use worldwide. I don't see why for instance you could do a slow roll out by using only letters for internal flights of countries that are ready for the switch. If you did that at first only for the USA that would probably leave enough room for Delta and the 2 other companies that need them in the short term. And then you upgrade the rest of north america: Mexico + Canada, then you continue the roll out. I am pretty sure all european countries could coordinate to do the switch at a specific date in the future as well.
- gumby 2y agoI thought of this but you need to be able to book flights in Europe from, say, Mozambique. Flights from Europe may overfly Kazakhstan ATC. And so on. It’s a system.
- raverbashing 2y agoTrue And that's why they should have started thinking about this 20 years ago (or even before that) Thinking of something like this: every new development and maintenance should be done with 5 digits in mind. While keeping it backwards compatible for 4 digits
- daemin 2y agoThere was no need to have 5 digit codes or more than 0-9 for the flight numbers 20 years ago. Arguably there isn't a need now. It's 3 airlines in the entire world which have this issue because they want to have their own 4000 flights plus codeshare more than 6000 other flights from partner companies. This is a problem for people inside those 3 airlines to solve within the constraints that the current living world has imposed on them.
- pixl97 2y agoEver hear the saying "If you owe the bank 1 million dollars it's your problem. If you owe the bank 10 billion dollars it's their problem". You list listed off the largest airlines on the planet of which pretty much every other airline has to interoperate with. This isn't "AA just has to deal with it", it becomes "This is now everyones problem".
- daemin 2y agoYes I have heard of that saying. What I am saying is that "the rest of the world" is bigger than AA.
- fellowniusmonk 2y agoIs this anything other than a problem the big 3 have made for themselves for what are essentially marketing reasons? Is codeshare as a "solution" really the best solution or is it just the best solution that also meets the marketing teams requirements? Do smaller airlines even care for a solution? Wouldn't a global industry wide solution basically be the big 3 bullying the smaller players to spend tons of money so the big 3 can juice their own mindshare?