TPAnx From United States of America, joined Aug 2005, 1021 posts, RR: 1 Posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 3175 times:
Fooling around with one of my flight trackers..I noticed that it lists two BA flights from TPA to LGW today...the usual
2166..and a flight 61..seperate departure and arrival times. AFAIK, TPA gets one LGW flight a day, six days a week.
Anyone know what's up??
TPAnx
Rivet42 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 817 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 3150 times:
There's no such flight on the Gatwick arrivals page, and indeed if I take a look at FlightStats, it has the following message against "BA 61"...:
"We have reason to believe that this flight is not operational on this day. This usually means that we have an old schedule in our system."
So, I'd take it as being an error, as in any case that is not a regular LGW flight number. I do see quite a few ghost flights on tracker systems, they are not infallible, although it makes me wonder where they get their data from!
AeroWesty From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 19268 posts, RR: 63 Reply 2, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 19 hours ago) and read 3141 times:
FlightAware lists it as BA61T. BA2166 hasn't operated since November 2006 according to them.
Rivet42 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 817 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 19 hours ago) and read 3095 times:
... if in doubt, check with the airline! On ba.com, they list BA 2166 as being expected into LGW at 08:05 local, so i'd imagine that that particular flight does indeed exist.
DFW13L From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (5 years 9 months 2 weeks 5 hours ago) and read 2632 times:
Quoting BAW076 (Reply 5): BA2166 is the flight number.
The ATC callsign for this flight is "Speedbird Six-One Tango"
That is why it shows up as BA61T.
I had to figure out the same thing with my recent ORD LHR flight. BA 296 uses callsign Speedbird 24 Romeo. And if I put BAW296 in flightaware, it comes up with an old YUL flight.
BAW076 From UK - Scotland, joined Aug 2006, 746 posts, RR: 29 Reply 8, posted (5 years 9 months 1 week 6 days ago) and read 2408 times:
Quoting DFW13L (Reply 7): I had to figure out the same thing with my recent ORD LHR flight. BA 296 uses callsign Speedbird 24 Romeo. And if I put BAW296 in flightaware, it comes up with an old YUL flight.
Many callsigns for many flights on many airlines dont actually use the flight numbers.
BA (including Shuttle), BD, LH, EI, OS spring to mind, but I am sure there are many more that use this format.
Rivet42 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 817 posts, RR: 1 Reply 9, posted (5 years 9 months 1 week 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 2327 times:
Quoting BAW076 (Reply 5): That is why it shows up as BA61T.
Ah, so that's it.
Which prompts me to ask the inevitable question - presumably a given BA flight number has a specific call-sign, in which case what is the relationship between the two? Is there a defined list of the two together?
Adding to the list, I've noticed OK doing the same thing recently, and AF seem to use a mixture (eg. AF2170 becomes "AF217B", but AF2370 becomes "AF370E"...).
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