Flight number puzzle - apparent duplication and an odd / even numbers mix in the same direction

[Peter Mugridge]

We have a bit of a puzzle here... my daughter has made a booking for a trip to the USA which includes a couple of domestic flights. One of them is showing is AA1838 from Chicago to Eppley. However, AA1838, when you Google it, comes up as Pittsburgh to Phoenix. Yet when you search Chicago to Eppley, the flight does indeed appear as 1838 - an example screenshot is below.

Aside from apparently duplicating another flight number by the same airline, the screenshot below also shows it to be the sole even numbered flight in a list of odd numbered flights - something which itself is against aviation conventions regarding directional flight numbering.

Can anyone explain this, please?

Yes, she will be querying this with the booking agent, but it's clearly not the agent at fault - it is showing as 1838 in the systems and the agent's own system will have simply picked up from that. I've certainly never seen anything like this happening before!

 

[JV_hunter]

Flight numbers can change from time to time, even across different routes. You can find this also happens on several easyJet and Ryanair flight numbers, most obviously around the start of the "summer season" in about March, where the flight can appear to be completely unrelated to the one you are booked on.

I wouldn't be concerned at all.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Thank you, it's still strange that they'd use an odd number in a direction that's even numbers, though?

 

[JV_hunter]

Seems America does things differently.
From a cursory search:

 

[KT550]

It is possible that the flight your daughter is booked on is part of a multi-sector flight which has the same flight number throughout.

Additionally, many U.S. airlines use the same flight number for both outward and return sectors on a simple AAA > BBB > AAA flight.

They also reallocate numbers frequently depending on the season, so as your flight is next month it's probable that all the numbers change at the beginning of June.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

In other words, this is just down to Americans being... well... Americans again? Doing everything differently simply because they want to?

It's not a multi sector with the same flight number; she reaches Chicago on a BA / AA / Finnair code share which is BA297 to us. Which appears to be a solid A380 diagram, incidentally.