New West flight numbers

rjh

Veteran
Aug 22, 2005
1,061
1
Beginning August 1st, many of the west flights will be re-numbered. All flights will be numbered below 700. It looks like the last 2 digits will be the same. For example HI flights (920, 922, etc) will become 20,22. SFO flights are currently in the 800 range; they will now be in the 400 range.

Anybody on the east know what's happening with their flight numbers?
 
I don't believe that there's going to be many changes for east flights. I know that Mesa flights will all be in the 2900 range as of late Aug/early Sept. Right now, AW Express flights are in the 6000+ range and US East cr9 flights are from 500-5100.
 
I don't believe that there's going to be many changes for east flights. I know that Mesa flights will all be in the 2900 range as of late Aug/early Sept. Right now, AW Express flights are in the 6000+ range and US East cr9 flights are from 500-5100.



How about the Piedmont flights? I greatly prefer a Dash-8 to Mesa, Chatauqua, Air Wisconsin - they've booked those turnaround times TOO tight and connections are too stressful or lost.

There have been at least a couple of CRJ-200s (or those CL-56 pieces of crap) (non-PSA but I don't remember who) that have been without A/C in the past 2 weeks. This is friggin' ridiculous. I almost had one of those "I gotta get off this plane" moments that makes the news as we were #10 for takeoff and about 120 degrees in the cabin a few weeks ago. But I digress.....maybe I'll start a new topic.

The Dash's just go - and go - and go - and go and get me on home on time. I LOVE 'em!!
 
This brings up a question I've always had.....How do flight numbers get assigned in general? Especially for longer haul routes. Why, for example, is PHL-FCO flight #2 and the return flight #3, yet BOS-PIT-LAX is flight #1.

I notice that some, not all, of the intl' flights and west coast flights are also 2 digit numbers. But then some are not. PHL-FRA is 893/894. I'm sure there's some organization behind it all, but looking from the outside in, I don't see it.
 
There is going to be a total change in the flight number system in Oct. They are slowly changing things over in the Aug and Sept schedules. This is how it will all shake out in Oct:

1-699 - HP Mainline flights
700-1999 - US Mainline flights
2000-2199 - US Shuttle flights
2200-4759 - US Express flights
4751-4799 - HP Code Share flights
4800-5099 - US Express flights
5100-5499 - HP Express flights
5500-8799 - Code share flights (BD, JK, AP, LH, TP, UA, UP, ZQ, WM)
 
Finally! The overlapping flight numbers are a huge annoyance from a customer's standpoint.
 
There is going to be a total change in the flight number system in Oct. They are slowly changing things over in the Aug and Sept schedules. This is how it will all shake out in Oct:

1-699 - HP Mainline flights
700-1999 - US Mainline flights
2000-2199 - US Shuttle flights
2200-4759 - US Express flights
4751-4799 - HP Code Share flights
4800-5099 - US Express flights
5100-5499 - HP Express flights
5500-8799 - Code share flights (BD, JK, AP, LH, TP, UA, UP, ZQ, WM)


Hopefuly one of those "Express" number sections is left for Piedmont.
 
The express sections comprise all of the express carriers. PI flight number range will be 4100-4649.
 
One hokey thing with the flight numbers post October is that HP operated flights are still 8xxx US flights. Meaning, if the flight numbers don't overlap, why can't both HP and US use the same flight number regardless of who is operating the flight?

For example, if after October 1 an HP-operated LAS-SEA flight is HP 50, why is US selling this as US 8023 in lieu of US 50 with the "operated by America West" note? With no flight number overlap between HP and US, having the 8xxx numbers seems to keep confusion, unless I'm missing something. (This was an example only.)
 
I believe that this still has to do with the seperate operating certificates. We are still technically (from an operational standpoint) still two different carriers. With the flight number realignmnet we are setting ourselves up for the next phase of changes, which could include dropping the 8000 series of flight numbers in anticipation of being able to use the "operated by" labels. We could be elminiating the duplicate flight numbers to help with things like web functionality. Being able to input just a flight number to check status, versus having to input the origination and flight number.
 
Do the operating certificates say codeshare flight numbers must be above a certain number? If not, I don't see why it matters as long as the "operated by" note is present and there is no overlap between HP and US.
 
I believe that is the ultimate goal. Code share numbers can be anything you want them to be, but it gets more confusing. Most all employees know that any flight number in a certain part of the range is a code share flight. Just as you know that a flight from 2000-2200 is a Shuttle flight.

Could the flight number ranges have something to do with the cross over from SABRE to Shares and vice versa? Not sure. Could it be a way of transitioning everything to either the 037 or 401 ticket designator? Not sure.
 
There is going to be a total change in the flight number system in Oct. They are slowly changing things over in the Aug and Sept schedules. This is how it will all shake out in Oct:

1-699 - HP Mainline flights
700-1999 - US Mainline flights
2000-2199 - US Shuttle flights
2200-4759 - US Express flights
4751-4799 - HP Code Share flights
4800-5099 - US Express flights
5100-5499 - HP Express flights
5500-8799 - Code share flights (BD, JK, AP, LH, TP, UA, UP, ZQ, WM)
Looking through Shares, it looks like HP Express flights will also be in the 2000 range.