Frequent fliers know the drill. You jump from a cab, ticket in hand. In the airport, you scan the departure board for your flight number, note the gate assignment and make a run for it.
As you head down the concourse, perhaps the number reminds you of a lucky Lotto combination or Grandma’s street address. But have you ever wondered just how your flight to Poughkeepsie was assigned that particular number?
Well, if you picture a couple of people tucked in a room juggling numbers all day, you’re not far off the mark.
At least that’s the way it is for Sheila Wiedemann and Chris Spidle, schedule managers for Elk Grove Village-based United Airlines. They agree that there is a method to the sometimes madness of assigning flight numbers for the 2,200 daily flights on their carrier’s schedule.
A flight number, such as United 336, is also known in the industry as a “call sign,” and it’s not only an identifier for passengers but also for pilots to communicate with air-traffic controllers.
Gus Carbonell of AirTran Airways in Orlando says some airlines use nicknames for their call signs. Theirs is “Manatee.”
“This is basically pilot-speak,” he said. “The idea is to avoid confusion between carriers with similar-sounding names. For example, America West uses the name `Cactus’ before the flight number, and that distinguishes them from American Airlines.”
Carbonell added that call signs are part of an airline’s operations manual and must be approved by the FAA.
There are some industry standards in flight numbering, according to Wiedemann. “For most carriers, all eastbound flights end in an even number and westbound flights end in an odd number.” Northbound flights are even-numbered and southbound are odd-numbered.
And schedule managers are never far from the Official Airline Guide. “Before assigning aflight number, we take a look to make sure another carrier isn’t using the same number over the same airspace.”
At Dallas-based American Airlines the range for flight numbers falls into three categories, said spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan. “For our American Airlines jet service, we use flight numbers from 0 to 2999. Within that parameter we assign flights 0 through 100 to our premier service, which is intercontinental and transcontinental.” Numbers 3000-5000 are assigned to their American Eagle turbo prop flights and 6000-9000 are flights with their code-share partners–Canadian, Qantas and Singapore Airlines. (Code share is a linking with another carrier to provide extended service.)
Carbonell said AirTran’s numbering system is logical. “Our regular flights are numbered between 0 and 999. We have between 40 and 50 a day in and out of Orlando, to and from mid-size cities like Rochester, N.Y., and Bloomington-Normal, Ill.” AirTran uses their 3000 series for charters, their 5000 series for ferrying aircraft to maintenance and the 7000 series for training flights.
Schedules can change monthly for larger carriers so numbers are re-arranged. But some flights have priority over others when hanging on to a flight number. At United, Wiedemann says the top consideration goes to international flights, followed by flights to Hawaii, then transcontinental flights. “Business One” flights from O’Hare International Airport to Washington, D.C., Newark, or La Guardia in New York hold the fourth spot on the priority list, then comes code-share flights (theirs are with Air Canada and Lufthansa) and hub flights are at the bottom. “If a flight number is going to change, it will most likely be on a flight in or out of our hub airports,” said Wiedemann.
To calm the superstitious, carriers agree that they won’t offer a flight bearing the number 13. And AirTran’s Carbonell said nobody uses 666, the Biblical number for Satan, either. “I guess too many people saw `The Omen,’ ” he chuckled.
“We had a flight from Dallas numbered 911,” he added. “When it was brought to our attention, we said, `Oops’ and changed it to 921.”
United has a “good luck” flight–711 to Las Vegas–and for airborne history buffs there’s 1492 to Columbus, Ohio, and 1776 to Boston, according to Wiedemann.
“In Asia it is believed the number 8 is good luck, so we attempt to use that number frequently when serving that continent,”said Stuart Russell, schedule manager for Canadian Airlines International, in Calgary, Alberta, of lucky and unlucky numbers. Conversely, he said the Italian translation of the number 47 has an association with death. So Russell said they avoid using those digits for any flights into or out of Italy.
When it comes to special numbers, it doesn’t get any better than number 1. At United, if a passenger books their Flight 1, they’ll be headed around the world, said Wiedemann.
“It leaves from Los Angeles and flies to Hong Kong, then to Delhi, on to London, New York and back to L.A.,” she listed. United Flight 2 is the same itinerary in the opposite direction.
Though most numbering is by the book, in Denver, Frontier Airlines Vice President Jeff Potter takes a more lighthearted approach to assigning flight numbers. “It’s an exact science,” he said tongue-in-cheek. “We might choose a flight number that reflects one of our wives’ birthdays, a kid’s bar mitzvah or even the date of someone’s divorce.”
Potter said there is little or no government intervention in flight number assignments. The only exception is when two carriers are headed in the same direction with similar call numbers. “That’s when the so-called `grandfather clause’ takes effect. Whoever has had the number longer keeps it, and the other carrier has to change.
“If an airline has a fatal accident, then the number is retired,” Potter said. Frontier hasn’t had to face that, according to Potter, but others have.
Joe Hopkins, spokesman for United Airlines, said it is a matter of sensitivity and respect. “We retire a flight number, as in the case of United 232 that crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989. Why remind people who had family on board that flight by using that number again?”
Russell acknowledged that there is a sales and marketing angle to flight numbering, too. “The lower-numbered flights appear first on a travel agent’s computer screen and consequently are the most frequently booked.” He said airlines reserve these lower numbers for their long hauls, the lucrative intercontinental and transcontinental flights. The bottom line is always profit, so when it comes to flight numbers, lower means higher.
