Airlines And Their Flight Numbers

wilco737 · Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:50 am

Hi guys,

you know, I am somewhat curious Big grin

When I am on my flights and I hear other airlines with their callsigns and flight numbers, like CX289, or NZ1 or something like that. I am always curious: where are they going to or where are they coming from.
During my flights I have no chance to check it, only when I write them down, and when I get back home then I can check the internet for it.
Now my question: Does anybody know if there is some "masterschedule" for every major airline? Which I can download and then enter airline and flight number and the program shows me the routing?
I guess something like this doesnt exist...
Or do I have to download every schedule of every airline itself? I hope not Wink

Thanks for the help guys

WILCO737 (MD11F)
airplane

gift4tbone · Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:18 pm

Well, you could always just search flightaware, and look at the history for that flight number, to find the exact routing of that flt #, that day.

[email protected]

Mir · Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:26 pm

Some airlines used to put their schedules listed by flight numbers in the back of their timetables, so that you could see where a certain flight was going, and what type of aircraft it was, etc. (I remember UA doing this specifically). Now that those are gone, I'm not really sure, except for just remembering which routes are which numbers.

(Edited for clarity)

-Mir

[Edited 2007-10-07 07:27:21]

JGPH1A · Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:29 pm

Get access to a GDS Smile

wilco737 · Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:36 pm

Quoting Gift4tbone (Reply 1):
Well, you could always just search flightaware, and look at the history for that flight number, to find the exact routing of that flt #, that day.

Yeah, I know about that website, but hard to access at FL370 at 500knots without internet connection Big grin

I want to know during flight... but I guess I will never get something like this or I have to download all the timetables from the airlines itself Sad

WILCO737 (MD11F)
airplane

nighthawk · Sun Oct 07, 2007 2:49 pm

Quoting WILCO737 (Reply 4):
Yeah, I know about that website, but hard to access at FL370 at 500knots without internet connection Big grin
I want to know during flight... but I guess I will never get something like this or I have to download all the timetables from the airlines itself

shouldnt you be flying the plane, not looking up flight numbers? Silly

There is a very simple way to see where they are going... ask them Silly

pilotboi · Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:46 pm

Quoting Nighthawk (Reply 5):
shouldnt you be flying the plane, not looking up flight numbers?

There is a very simple way to see where they are going... ask them

Just taking a guess, but maybe he's refering to flying as a pax, not a pilot. And he may be listening to ATC over the headset. In this case - he wouldn't be able to ask.

Now if he were a pilot, then that would kind of be a bit odd to ask everyone where they are going, especially if it's busy. ATC doesn't really like pilots talking directly to each other.

But to answer the original question, I doubt there's a "master schedule" of EVERY airline. This type of stuff changes all the time, so each airline puts out their own schedules, usually available on their website. For example, DL has a PDF timetable available for download.

xtoler · Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:06 pm

Flightaware.com is a good website as long as you are in North America. As a passenger, ask your flight attendant where you are, if he/she doesn't know they could ask the pilot. Flying for a regional airline I'm usually pretty good about VFR as I grew up around where I fly. A lot of the pilots just go by VOR, but as an F/A I can just look out the window and tell people where we are. If I wasn't busy doing F/A duties, I used to give an air tour of Virginia as well as the DELMARVA peninsula. The best tour was coming from PIT back home to RIC and we only had about 14 pax on our E145. As a joke I pointed out "The Candy Bar formerly known as The Last Chance" . It's right off of Hull Street in south Ricmond, Va. It's a strip club. This older lady saw the place and she said,"So that's where my husband hangs out every Friday." Yep, that's the Candy Bar. I drank beer with her husband and put my dollar bills on the stage with him. It sure is a small world.

FlyASAGuy2005 · Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:21 pm

Delta had timetables up unitil 2004? Anyway, I think Southwest still does it.

PanAm747 · Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:32 pm

It is safe to say that most flight numbers are completely random. You could go crazy trying to find a pattern to them all! wideeyed

Some airlines have certain flight numbers that have been, and always will be, their international routes. For example, when United purchased Pan Am's Pacific routes, they kept the flight numbers virtually the same. The SYD-LAX is still flight #815, as it was in 1985.

When commuter service began, most airlines had flight numbers up to 999 (maybe a few went above that), and commuter flights were indicated by 1XXX or 2XXX. Today, however, some airlines have mainline flights numbered into the 2000's, and commuter flight numbers go up into the 4XXX and 5XXX range.

Go figure.

ytib · Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:55 pm

Quoting PanAm747 (Reply 9):
Some airlines have certain flight numbers that have been, and always will be, their international routes. For example, when United purchased Pan Am's Pacific routes, they kept the flight numbers virtually the same. The SYD-LAX is still flight #815, as it was in 1985.

If you look at United there is some pattern for the most part...
8xx - Pacific Flights
9xx - Atlantic Flights
Low Double Digits - ps Service
Middle Double Digits - Hawaii Service (including one stop serive)
10xx - Weekend Only Flights
14xx, 15xx - Ted
Odd - Westbound
Even - Eastbound

I assume you will find that the case in a lot of instances.

Also with United you will not find any flights in the 13xx range. However on their website you can find those if you search for flight status.

wilco737 · Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:20 am

Asking all the pilots where they are going?! Jesus, ATC will start loving me Big grin

Ah well, so I guess I have to write down the numbers and check them when I get back home! Maybe one day I know them all, but I doubt that Big grin

Thanks for the answers guys...

WILCO737 (MD11F)
airplane

Transpac787 · Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:26 am

Quoting PanAm747 (Reply 9):
The SYD-LAX is still flight #815, as it was in 1985.

As said above, at UA all westbound routes are odd numbers, with eastbound's being even flight numbers. Also, UA does not have a flight 815 from SYD. The current flight numbers are:

UA839: LAX-SYD
UA863: SFO-SYD

UA840: SYD-LAX
UA870: SYD-SFO

Quoting Ytib (Reply 11):
14xx, 15xx - Ted

Ted also has a few 16xx numbers now.

Quoting Ytib (Reply 11):
Middle Double Digits - Hawaii Service (including one stop serive)

With the exception of UA1.....ORD-HNL

CanadianNorth · Mon Oct 08, 2007 3:39 am

Quoting PanAm747 (Reply 9):
It is safe to say that most flight numbers are completely random. You could go crazy trying to find a pattern to them all!

The airline I work for (Air North) has a rather simple pattern:

7x = ground equipment call signs
1xx = 737 charters
207 = North sked heading out (reverse triangle)
208 = North sked coming home (reverse triangle)
307 = North sked heading out (normal triangle)
308 = North sked coming home (normal triangle)
505/506 = 737 Normal sked to/from YVR
507/508 = 737 Normal sked to/from YYC and YEG
525/526 = 737 Extra YVR flights
527/528 = 737 Extra Alberta flights
6xx = Hawker charters and freighters

CanadianNorth

USADreamliner · Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:33 am

If you have a flight number, you can check FLYTECOMM.COM

NZ1 · Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:12 am

Air NZ use the following:

Odd - Westbound
Even - Eastbound

NZ3XX - Domestic shuttle flights.
NZ5XX - AKl-CHC-AKL
NZ4XX - AKL-WLG-AKL and WLG-CHC-WLG
NZ6XX - AKL-DUD-AKL and AKL-ZQN-AKL
NZ7XX - Zeal
NZ8XX - Zeal
NZ9XX - Zeal
NZ2XXX - Eagle Air (Link)
NZ5XXX - Mt Cook (Link)
NZ8XXX - Air Nelson (Link)
NZ6XXX - Positioning, training, maintenance flights.

Have probably missed heaps out, but other NZ staffers can help fill in the blanks

NZ1

SANFan · Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:51 am

Quoting WILCO737 (Thread starter):
? Which I can download and then enter airline and flight number and the program shows me the routing?

WILCO', I think maybe what you're wanting is something I've been after for a long time.

In the old days the OAG (domestic US was published every 2 weeks, int'l monthly) included a section in the back called "Flight Itineraries"; for every airline, it printed every flight, its equipment, and its routing (times were not included here.)
For example:
AA 2 762 LAX JFK
UA 1057 752 SAN HNL
WN 1572 737 MSY HOU AUS SAN OAK SEA

I used it constantly as a travel agent because whenever I had a customer booked on a 1-stop (direct) flight, they invariably asked, "Oh, well where does it stop?" If I didn't happen to know the answer, this tool made it very easy to find out.

I would love to find this information somewhere; I've even talked to the OAG people about it and the ones I talked to had no idea what I was talking about! I know that the printed DL Timetables, as well as United's, and I'm quite sure several of the foreign flags, had this feature included.

If I should ever stumble on a source for this, I will certainly announce it here on A.net.

bb

9V-SPI · Mon Oct 08, 2007 3:19 pm

Try this next time you are on listening to your airband and see if this helps. I've just tried it for a few flights that I know the numbers for and its has got them correct

http://www.flightview.com/TravelTools/default.asp

or this one

http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlight.do

Hope this helps in some way

Mark

dc10bhx · Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:24 pm

SANfan is quite correct. The OAG Cargo Guide still includes flight numbers for all routes which have a transit stop. The list is in alphabetical order by Airline code and shows origin / destination with whatever transit stops there are. This book only covers the wide-body and freighter flights. There also used to be an OAG passenger guide which listed all passenger flights only. I have not seen one of these now for about seven or eight years. The only problem is these books (PAX and FRTR would take up quite an amount of space in your carry on baggage.

jbernie · Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:20 pm

From what I have seen QF has the following:
1-399 - international
400-> domestic

odd numbers seem to be out of Australia, even numbers returning.
they do not seem to have any groupings for specific countries/routes that I can tell.

I'm sure it is more elaborate than that, but thats all I can tell you as an observer.

FlyASAGuy2005 · Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:34 pm

Working in the bagroom in ATL for ASA, I got real use to flight numbers. And I could actually look at a tag and it's flight number and know where it's going. Also was handy for knowing weather it was a Comair, Freedom, Skywest, etc.

David_itl · Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:39 pm

Simplified BA:
1-299 = long-haul ex-LHR
301-999 = European ex-LHR
1000-1499 = shuttle services ex-LHR (really more like 1300-1499)
1502/1503 = JFK-MAN, MAN-JFK
2001-2299 = long-haul ex-LGW
2300-2899 = European ex-LGW
2900-2999= domestic ex-LGW
9xxx = postioning service

BA68xx/69xx = GBAirways
BA82xx = Sun Air of Scandinavia
BA87xx/88xx/89xx = Loganair

The other franchise carriers will have their own BA "block".

CoolGuy · Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:58 pm

Quoting WILCO737 (Reply 4):
Yeah, I know about that website, but hard to access at FL370 at 500knots without internet connection Big grin
I want to know during flight... but I guess I will never get something like this or I have to download all the timetables from the airlines itself Sad

You can get the full timetables for many airlines (it would be great if there was a directory of each airline's timetable website). The ones I've seen are in pdf form, and with the power of Mac OS X, Google Desktop Search, etc., it would be pretty easy to find the routing while in flight.

pmk · Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:19 pm

You could always get an old fashioned OAG book. They aren't cheap but it has all the scheduled flights in it for the year. They do change more now than they used to but it's better than waiting.

PMK

iahcsr · Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:27 pm

CO domestic flts tend to use the same two numbers on given routes... With many many exceptions of course...
Examples..
xx10-xx11 - IAH EWR IAH
xx23-xx22 - IAH MSY IAH
..... 06-07 TPA
......95-94 LAX
......88-89 DTW
There ave probably just as many routes that don't have this pattern. But for what it's worth....

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