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Aviation glossary

Flight number

Also: flight designator, flight code

Registration and rules

Combination of an airline code and a number of up to four digits that identifies a particular air service in timetables, tickets and airports.

What it is

A flight number designates a service, not an aircraft: the same number recurs daily or weekly on the same route at the same time, even when a different aircraft operates it. Each airline has its own conventions; many reserve low numbers for their flagship routes and use odd and even numbers to tell the two directions of a route apart.

A single flight can carry several numbers when it is sold under a codeshare: one airline operates it while its partners market seats under their own codes. For air traffic control, the flight is identified by the operating airline's ICAO designator and a number that does not always match the commercial one.

On Vuelopedia

Airlines

Related terms

IATA airline designatorTwo-character designator that IATA assigns to an airline and that appears in its flight numbers, tickets and reservations, such as BA for British Airways. CodeshareAgreement under which an airline sells seats, under its own code and flight number, on a flight operated by another carrier. Call signName by which an aircraft is identified in radio communications with air traffic control, such as Speedbird or Lufthansa followed by the flight number. Scheduled serviceFlight or series of flights operated to a published timetable, open for sale to the public and repeated systematically between two or more points.
Whole glossary

Cite

To cite this page in academic work, an article or Wikipedia, choose the style and copy the reference. The access date is today.

This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Flight number. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number

MLA

“Flight number.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “Flight number.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) Flight number. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_flight_number,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{Flight number}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/flight-number |title=Flight number |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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