where your flight is coming from

Tony:

If you're getting on the plane at a hub, the best way is to call the airline
because even if the flight has the same number, it may change aircraft &
gates when it arrives at the hub. That said, after September 11th, the
airlines are suspicious of calls asking for that type of information.

If you're catching the plane at the end of a spoke, it's pretty easy to
figure out by looking at the gate assignment if you know the major hubs that
your airline uses. For example: in Tampa and going to Detroit on Northwest
departing at 2:00 pm on a B757, I know that Northwest's hubs are Detroit,
Memphis and Minneapolis. I would look on the Northwest web site for the
departure gate in Tampa of my flight. Then I'd check for flights from each
of those hubs arriving an hour or two prior to my departure time and look
for a match of the Tampa gate assignment and aircraft type for my outbound
flight. I then monitor the inbound flight.

I often do this to be sure that the plane that makes up my flight departed
on time. If it didn't, then it's time to start thinking about "plan B."

Hope this helps.

Bob
www.InternetTravelTips.com



"Tony Rice" wrote in message
...
It's easy enough to figure out where your flight is coming from if it's
making a stop at your originating airport and keeping the same flight
number as it continues on to your destination.

Any suggetsions on how to figure out where your flight is originating from?
This is handy information to have when cutting through the mountains of BS
gate agents can be so adept at generating when there is a delay, especially
when it's lots of delays masking an eventual cancellation.

It be great if there were a website you could lookup the tail number that
the airline has assigned to a particular flight and then find out where
that aircraft REALLY is.

"Robert Cowen" wrote in message
nk.net...
Tony:

If you're getting on the plane at a hub, the best way is to call the
airline
because even if the flight has the same number, it may change aircraft &
gates when it arrives at the hub. That said, after September 11th, the
airlines are suspicious of calls asking for that type of information.

I had a delay waiting on "inbound a/c" due to weather delay at DTW on NW
earlier this year. The departure time kept creeping up, so I eventually
asked the gate agent where the aircraft was coming in from. His response
was, I can't tell you for security reasons. Complete B.S. in my book.

While NWA is my preferred US domestic carrier, this was the worst gate agent
I had dealt with in a long time. He also forgot to do the elite upgrades
that were waitlisted and instead sold the FC seats to coach pax at $50 a
shot b/c coach was overbooked. Needless to say, there were several upset
elites, including myself, sitting in the back on this flight.

I then called the Elite Line on my mobile and they were much more helpful
(was coming in from MKE and mechanical). Turned out the inbound was later
than what was published and the gate agent didn't want to say what the
actual delay was, but instead kept increasing it 15 minutes at a time with
no announcements. At the same time, looking at the arrivals board at DTW,
no inbound arrivals were listed to the assigned gate. I suspect the arrival
accidently dropped off after being delayed.

As we boarded the flight, the pilot and FA's then apologized for the late
inbound because of mx problems at MKE.

But anyways, these days, it seems some people are quick to say "security
reasons" instead of taking the time to provide an honest, accurate answer.

Best,

Steve