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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

The airport departure board doesn't have flight numbers? All the ones I've seen do. And if you can't notice the difference between two different flight numbers, how are you going to notice the difference between one flight departing at 1:35 and another that departs at 1:45?

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During the ongoing redevelopment of Belgrade airport I did find myself with a short connection there and unable to find a departure board. I checked the airport website, but it only had the flight names and not gates!

Beginning to get worried and with no-one to talk to in the construction site of an airport I discovered that I needed to rotate my phone and then the extra columns appeared on their website. Yes I had tried scrolling and zooming, but in portrait it wouldn't actually render outside of the visible width.

Of course, they have flight numbers, though the destination and the departure time was a good heuristic until it was not. I am much better at remembering the departure time than an arbitrary sequence of letters and numbers.

The flight number is on the ticket/boarding pass.

Flight arrival and departure times can change suddenly without ample notice. That was never a good way to locate your flight.

The original departure time stays the same, and the delay is written separately. The same applies to trains. Well, this is how it usually works in Europe, not sure about other places.

My home airport is a major hub; it is very common for some destinations to have a dozen or more flights across the various airlines. Quite often the American and United flights are scheduled similarly and leave within 30 minutes of each other.

I don't think this is that uncommon, so I've only ever paid attention to airline and flight number. I would recommend everyone else do the same.

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