The Secret Lives of Flight Numbers
WHERE DO flight numbers come from? Do they hold some hidden meaning?
Yes and no. Ordinarily, flights going eastbound are assigned even numbers; those headed westbound get odd numbers. Another habit is giving lower, one- or two-digit numbers to more prestigious, long-distance routes. If there’s a flight 1 in an airline’s timetable, it’s the stuff of London–New York.
Numbers might also be grouped geographically. At United, transpacific flights use three-digit numbers beginning with 8, which is considered a lucky number in some Asian cultures. Four-digit sequences starting with a 3 or higher are, most of the time, indications of a code-share flight.
Technically, a flight number is a combination of numbers and letters, prefaced with the carrier’s two-letter IATA code. Every airline has one of these codes. For Delta, American, and United, it’s DL, AA, and UA, respectively. Lufthansa uses LH; Emirates uese EK. Sometimes it’s alphanumeric, as with JetBlue’s B6.
If you didn’t know about this practice, you probably became familiar with it after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which from the start was referred to as “MH370.” In the United States, we tend to ignore these prefixes, but overseas they are used consistently. In Europe or Asia, the airport departure screen might show, for instance, flights CX105 or TG207. That’s Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways. When filling in your immigration forms, you should use the full designator.
These airline codes are sometimes random or meaningless, but when they do have a meaning it can be fun to decipher. Many are straightforward: BA for British Airways. Aeroflot’s SU comes from “Soviet Union.” Others are more esoteric. For instance, EgyptAir’s choice of MS, which would seem random until you realize the Arabic word for Egypt is “Misr.” Maybe someone can explain why Finnair’s code is AY.
Flight numbers along a given route can remain unchanged for years or even decades. When I was a kid, Lufthansa’s daily departure from Boston to Frankfurt was flight 421; the inbound from Frankfurt was 420 (a reversal of the east/west practice described above). Lufthansa still uses these numbers. In the old days the aircraft was a DC-10 or sometimes a 707. Today it’s a 747-400.
American’s morning departure from Boston to Los Angeles had been flight AA11 as far back as the 1960s. That ended on September 11, 2001. After an incident, one of the first things an airline does is retire the number of the affected flight. I had taken flight 11 once, when I was a freshman in high school. It was a DC-10 at the time.
The longest-surviving flight number might well be Qantas flight QF1. This is the Sydney-London run. Begun in the 1940s along the so-called “Kangaroo route,” the flight would make multiple stopovers along the way. Today it’s a one-stop via Singapore.
What other old numbers are still around? If you know of any good ones, tell us in the comments section.
Photos by the author.
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52 Responses to “The Secret Lives of Flight Numbers”
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TWA 800 had not one, but two hull losses. One in 1964, the other in 1996. A good friend as a child was on the 1964 crash on the runway in Rome.
In the 1990s, United had a Denver to Columbus flight designated UA1492.
In the early 1980s I was on a Pan Am 747 that had just arrived at JFK from Frankfurt. As we were taxiing in to the terminal, one of the pilots came on the PA system to tell us passengers that there was a Concorde also taxiing in on a neighboring taxiway.
It was British Airways, so the flight number would have been BA1; call sign ‘Speed Bird One’.
This is in response to the comment below from Martha Aarons:
“In 1990 I believe we flew from Moscow to NY on Pan American flight #1, a 747. Can someone verify that was likely an accurate memory of the number?”
Beginning in 1947 Pan Am operated a ‘Round the World Service’. Flight #1 was from San Francisco, west-bound, across the Pacific, via Asia and Europe, then trans-Atlantic, to New York City. Flight #2 went in the opposite direction, from New York City, eastbound, to San Fransisco.
For most of its history, until airline deregulation during the Carter Administration, Pan Am did not operate any flights within the United States. A passenger on the ‘Round the World Service’ would have needed to finish their trip on a different US carrier.
Who invented the flight number? I cannot find a single reference online.
Finnair is AY, because it was called Aero OY when ir was given its designator.
Interesting that no one has mentioned Lufthansa flight 2222 to Toulouse.
Adding to the list of prestigious flight 1/2 routes:
NZ1/NZ2: It used to be their LHR LAX AKL route, but now it’s their 18-hour JFK AKL flights.
DL1/DL2: JFK LHR on the rare 764. I suppose you can make a lot of bad puns about “Delta 1”.
EK1/EK2: DXB LHR on the A380
EY1/EY2: AUH FRA, mainly on the 787-10.
QR1/QR2: DOH LHR on the 777-300ER.
While Eric said Singapore flight 1/2 was their SIN HKG, their most prestigious flight is arguably SQ21/22, SIN EWR, which could technically be considered 1/2 flight number.
Malaysia Airlines no longer uses MH370 for its KUL-PEK flight. It’s now MH360.
A couple other prestigious routes with 1/2 pairs:
ANA: NH1 / NH2 are IAD -> NRT and NRT -> IAD
JAL: JL1 / JL2 are SFO -> HND and HND -> SFO
SQ: SQ 1 / SQ 2 for SINHKG
Southwest 1 is DAL-HOU. Classic, legacy hubs.
United 1 is newer but still prestigious: SFO-SIN.
AA 1 is JFK-LAX. There was a crash before but the airline had decided to keep it. Probably because flight 1 is special enough.
AA2222 was long DFW-AUS RT, but eventually swapped to DFW-DCA.
Japan Air Lines flights JL2/JL1 have been HND-SFO-HND since at least the 1960s. A DC-8 in 1968, now a 787-9 (777-300ER pre-COVID).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_2
In 1990 I believe we flew from Moscow to NY on Pan American flight #1, a 747. Can someone verify that was likely an accurate memory of the number? I also remember we passengers spontaneously broke into applause when we became airborne.
Prior to the Wuhan flu at least 3 airlines had Flight 500 to or from Indianapolis. United (San Francisco), Alaska (Seattle), and Delta (Paris). The first two are still around, but Delta has yet to resume the direct IND-CDG flight. Hope it returns soon.
LOT Polish uses flight no 1 for Warsaw-Chicago, i.e. between two biggest “Polish” cities (some sources claim that there are more Poles in Chicago than in Warsaw).
Personal note: me and my family had tickets for AA11 for 15 September. I know, four days away, but still too close for comfort…
UA3 Heavy used to be from ORD to PHL to HNL, used to fly that all the time in the 1980’s.
Also AA brought back flight 191 a couple of years after the ORD crash, but I am not sure if it was still ORD to LAX, I just remember seeing it and being surprised they were using the flight number again.
In response to P Callahan–You are correct. Continental had many flight numbers like this. Flight 500 went to Indianapolis, Flt 1849 went to San Francisco. There were quite a few others. These just came to mind quickly.
KLM still uses KL621/622 for one of their Atlanta flights, I used to fly on that trout in the early 1980s. Only one daily flight say that time. I believe the JFK, ORD and HOU flight from those days still have this same numbers too. My dad flew for KLM and I might be able to find some to find some AMS-NYC flight numbers from the 50s/60s(no JFK at that time)
When Continental was around, I was a frequent flier out of IAH (George Bush Interconental Airport). Someone at Continental had a sense of humor with assigning flight numbers. Flight 1492 went from IAH to, wait for it, CMH (Columbus, OH). Flight 1776 went from IAH to PHL. Go figure.
I’m sure there were other similarly assigned flight numbers with Continental. Of course, all that was lost when Continental bought United. It’s too bad United management took over the operation. Continental was a much friendly sky to fly.
Swedish=of or relating to aircraft or aeronautics an aero engine. aero. abbreviation.
Osakeyhtiö (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈosɑkeˌʔyhtiø]; “stock company”), often abbreviated to Oy (pronounced [ˈoːˌʔyː]), is the term for a Finnish limited company (e.g., Ltd, LLC, or GmbH). The Swedish-language term is aktiebolag, often abbreviated (in Finland) to Ab.
Swedish is second language in Finland, thus the areo. The founder was probably a Swede-Finn.
I was not aware of numeric codes for airports. Fort Lauderdale was FLL. I was a ticket agent in the 1970’s, and all these years later I think of cities in their 3 letter codes.
Lufthansa’s numbering scheme isn’t necessarily a reversal of the east/west idea – rather, outbound flights are even and inbound flights are odd. So if the outbound flight is going west from the hub, then it does not match. If it’s going east, then it matches.
The first (and only) time I ever had (or seen) a single digit flight was the other flying from Kalahui (Maui/Hawaii) to Dallas on American (AA 6). It felt so odd that originally I thought that there was a typo.
LH 416 is still in operation IAD-FRA and LH 417 is as well on the return FRA-IAD. I believe both flight numbers were original to the route which began in the 1980’s (not sure on that date. Just a guess).
PA 106 ran the entire life of the service from IAD-LHR. Same with PA 107 LHR-IAD.
QF1 the famous Qantas Sydney to London route continues to this day. It’s had many routes, via Singapore, various places in the Middle East and the many hops of the pre 747 era but always gives a slight thrill. On international flights Qantas runs odd numbers leaving Australia (regardless of direction) and even numbers returning. QF2 brings you back from London to Syd, while QF93 takes you from MEL to LAX and 94 brings you home.
The boarding pass is strange, because it’s a Qatar Airways flight but the Arabic bit says ‘Saudia’! Is it because of codeshare, I wonder?
Wikipedia says this about the Finnair AY code: “The company code, “AY”, stands for Aero Osake-yhtiö (“yhtiö” means “company” in Finnish).”
I don’t know if they still do this, but I think Southwest used to have flight 1776 into Philadelphia, and flight 500 to Indy.
Hi Patrick, Liked this article a lot. It’s just the kind of thing that fascinates my semi-geeky brain. In that vein, just in case you really wanted to know… “AY stands for Aero Osake-yhtiö (“yhtiö” means “company” in Finnish)”. 😊
I’ve flown NW 1492 from DTW to CMH, NW 711 from DTW to LAS. I suspect that all airlines have a 711 flight to LAS.
The Korean Airlines flight that was shot down while unaccountably “lost” & wandering near sensitive Soviet installations (an event that happened to Korean *twice*) was 007.
Bittersweet irony.
Interesting how some numbers still exit, but with very different destinations. AF 664 used to be one of the daily Paris-Geneva milkruns. It now serves Chicago.
One they did get rid of for no reason other than superstition is AF 666 (also an old CDG-GVA)
BA has kept 001 and 002 for the New York trip, but it’s the special Airbus flight out of London-City (used to be Concorde…)
I love the fact that MEX – LHR (Aeromexico) is AM007 (obvious reasons!), The return, if you are wondering, is AM8.
With my home airport being SDR, I’ve flown to MAD on Iberia more than a couple times. 3-digit flight numbers that start with 5 are flights operated by mainline IB on an A320 series aircraft (IB552/553 in the morning, IB556/557 in the afternoon, IB558/559 in the evening), while 4-digit numbers starting with 89 are Air Nostrum CRJ-1000’s (IB8970/8971 in the morning, IB8968/8969 in the afternoon). Looking at Flightradar24, it seems as if these days it’s been IB8970/8971 in the morning, and mainline IB in the afternoon and evening.
This should be quite interesting: A few years ago, I was going to fly on AA749, operated by an American Airlines A330-200 (N285AY) from MAD to CLT. Due to a medical emergency, we had to land back at Madrid (yes, without dumping fuel). After sitting on the apron for a few hours while doctors worked on the ill passenger, the flight was canceled because the crew had worked too many hours. All ≈200 passengers were automatically given boarding passes for AA9200, which would depart 2 days later and was operated by the same A332, N285AY.
The day of flight AA9200, there were 2 MAD-CLT flights: the regularly scheduled AA749, and the aforementioned AA9200.
I also noticed that some crew members from the cancelled flight were on both AA9200 and that day’s AA749. Perhaps you could shed some light on this, Patrick?
The ignoble distinction of lowest flight number involved in a major accident likely belongs to TWA Flight 2, which collided with United Flight 718 over the Grand Canyon in June of 1956.
Interestingly, TWA did not “retire” the flight number. Flight 2 was still listed in TWA timetables for the Los Angeles to New York flight long after the Grand Canyon accident.
Oooh I think I know this bit of air travel trivia.
Finnair’s AY code comes from Aero Osake Yhtiö. Yhtiö means company in Finnish.
Any flight from Indo that takes more than 1 hour is 2 numericals like 57, 81, 09 and etc
Emirates breaks down all its flights by region, with the first number always indicating where it’s flying. I don’t know all the details but I believe it’s roughly:
000-199 Europe
200-299 Americas
300-399 East Asia
400-499 Australia + New Zealand
500-599 India
600-699 South Asia
700-799 Africa
800-899 Gulf
900-999 Middle East
I think Pan Am’s first ’round the world’ flight was number 001. It originated in San Francisco and went westbound.
Air Canada has a flight from SEA to YUL with the flight number 514. 514 is Montreal’s area code. Toronto’s area codes are 416, 437 and 647. Air Canada also has AC 416 which flies YYZ-YUL, AC 437 which flies YUL-YYZ and AC 647 which flies YYT-YYZ
Alaska Airlines’ flight from their Seattle hub to Pittsburgh, PA is flight number 412, which is Pittsburgh’s primary area code.
Lars,
Thanks for the correction, though that’s not my explanation; it’s just copied and pasted from the source. Perhaps an enterprising Wikipeidia editor could fix it. My Finnish friend didn’t complain about the hyphen when I sent it to them for confirmation, though, so it might be a common alternate. I don’t know, I don’t speak the language. 🙂
Another small nod for us Boston residents is B6 128: JFK-BOS. Figure that has to be intentional.
Ft. Lauderdale’s area code (and all the way from West palm to Miami) since at least the 1970’s (and probably earlier) was 305. Never 407. It has expanded into multiple codes more recently, but none are 407.
407 is Orlando.
What Dan V. says about Finnair is right, but leaves one thing out: “osakeyhtiö” is one word, and means “limited company”. So the Finnish abbreviation OY is the same as the British Ltd.
QF1 – QANTAS Sydney to London via Singapore
QF2 – The return
Presumably the new direct Sydney/London route will take over these famous (in Oz at least) route numbers?
Lufthansa’s Flight #1 is still used for one of its Hamburg-Frankfurt flights. This was LH’s first route back in 1955. I am not sure if it was a non-stop flight or if it may have included stop(s) along the way, i.e., Dusseldorf.
Patrick, you and I share the experience of having traveled on AA #11 – DC-10-10. I have been on other flight #s that have since been discontinued, unfortunately, due to air accidents like TWA #800 and SQ #006.
Patrick, please check your flight log…LH #’s their westbound flights from Germany to the U.S. using even flight #’s (and odd flight #’s for eastbound U.S. to Germany flights).
Delta used to have a flight 407 from LaGuardia to Fort Lauderdale. At the time, in the early ’90s, 407 was are code for Fort Lauderdale. It no longer is, There is still a Delta 407 that goes from Detroit to Myrtle Beach. The Florida area code connection disconnected.
Jetblue 777 is BOS – LAS, and flying into LAS are often other 777 flights in freq.
Jetblue 1 is BUF – JFK – FLL. Maybe not prestigious, but was their first flight. JetBlue uses many other numbers for fun/PR value. Like JFK – LHR is 007, Albuquerque is Route 66, etc.
Hawaiian HNL to JFK is flight 50. “Hawaiian Five Oh”.
But maybe coolest was “Speedbird Concorde 1”.
As a kid I remember flying UA 1 from Chicago to Honolulu and UA 2 from Honolulu to Chicago. Today UA 1 is San Francisco to Singapore and UA 2 is the return flight.
United’s 8xx flight numbers to Asia and 9xx flights to South America were inherited from pan am.
Delta 88xx and 89xx are often sports team charters or one-off repositioning flights
Flight 777 or 711 on any US airline is usually to Las Vegas
Is that true about Vegas? I didn’t know that!
Apparently there is an explanation for Finnair’s AY. The Wikipedia summary is pretty good. Of course, I wanted to verify this, so I ran it by a Finnish friend of mine who confirmed it. I always wondered how Finnair got its letters—I should have just asked them!
“In 1923, consul Bruno Lucander founded Finnair as Aero O/Y (Aero Ltd). The company code, “AY”, stands for Aero Osake-yhtiö (“yhtiö” means “company” in Finnish).”
FR24 also has a great explainer on some non-obvious IATA codes, and also has the same story about AY. https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/stuff-of-legend-how-airlines-got-two-digit-codes/
Inneresting. I figured that if you Googled “AY” you might get an explanation, but I wanted to somehow figure it (and some other ones) out on my own.