Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
bob606 wrote:I can see a problem with this. For example if the inbound flight is very delayed, another aircraft might be substituted for that flight. It could be taking off, and be in the same area as the late inbound flight, causing some confusion. I suspect this has occured to the FAA, and someone has come up with a solution.
XAM2175 wrote:bob606 wrote:I can see a problem with this. For example if the inbound flight is very delayed, another aircraft might be substituted for that flight. It could be taking off, and be in the same area as the late inbound flight, causing some confusion. I suspect this has occured to the FAA, and someone has come up with a solution.
Marketing flight number (that is, the IATA Flight Number) and the flight's identity for traffic control need not be the same thing. Many European operators treat them differently as a matter of course for flights within certain areas - for example, right now BA1338 is flying LHR-NCL as "Shuttle 12T" and BA801 is inbound to LHR from KEF as "Speedbird 80KA", while BA27 is off to HKG as plain-Jane "Speedbird 27".
Where carriers do usually try to align flight number and callsign, general practice for a delayed flight overlapping the on-time one is for the delayed flight's callsign to be suffixed "D".
travaz wrote:Ok thanks for the explanation . Now that I think about it it probably is flow control going into LAX