Travellers look at the departures and arrivals board. Picture: AP
HAVE you ever glanced at your airline ticket on the way to your boarding gate, or searched for it on the departure board, only to wonder just how your flight number was decided?
It turns out that you can learn a lot about a flight from its number.
We asked airline pilot, and author of the book Cockpit Confidential and the website askthepilot.com Patrick Smith just what those numbers really mean.
Technically, a flight number is a combination of numbers and letters, usually prefaced with the carrier’s two-letter International Air Transport Association (IATA) code – the international industry trade group of airlines.
Airlines can organise them according to the importance of the routes.
“Airlines often give lower numbers to their more prestigious, long-distance routes,” Mr Smith said. “If there’s a flight 001 in an airline’s timetables, it’s the stuff of London-Sydney or Paris-New York.”
For example, Qantas is flying QF1 from Sydney-Dubai-London today.
Flight numbers also have a key planning function and are usually grouped geographically.
Mr Smith said most airlines give eastbound flights even numbers, while westbound flights get odd numbers.
Qantas told news.com.au that they give odd numbers to outbound international flights, and even numbers for inbound flights to Australia.
Qantas flight numbers between 1-399 are international flights, including codeshare. Flight numbers higher than 400 are Qantas domestic service.
Meanwhile, all trans-Pacific flights operated by airlines such as United Airlines use three-digit numbers beginning with 8, which is considered lucky in many Asian cultures. Qantas says they also try to include an 8 in its Hong Kong route flight numbers.
Airlines also avoid some unlucky numbers such as 13. For example, there is no QF13 or QF666.
As a general rule, any four-digit flight number beginning with a 3 or higher – i.e. 3493 – is usually an indication of a codeshare flight operated by a partner.
Flight numbers can survive a lot of change within the airline.
“Numbers can stay in use for many years, even as departure times and aircraft types may change,” Mr Smith said.
“In some cases they outlast airlines themselves: To this day, some of the flight numbers used by Delta on its European routes trace their origins back to Pan Am, whose European network was sold to Delta more than 20 years ago.”
But other times, they just have to be scrapped.
“After an accident, one of the first things an airline does is retire the number, out of respect.
“For example, there’s no longer a flight 11 operated by American Airlines on its Boston-Los Angeles route. Flight 11 went all the way back to the days of the Boeing 707, but its final departure was on September 11th, 2001, when it was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center.”
source::::news.com.au
natarajan
Shreekant Kushwaha says his only mission in life is to promote organic farming
Mr Kushwaha says moving to organic farming changed his fortunes
In the last few years, Mr Kushwaha has conducted more than 1,000 magic shows
Take off with Natarajan 