Flight showing different number on Flightradar24

interstellaflyer

Being sad I like to track the flight we will be travelling on in the weeks prior to our departure date.  Over then last couple of weeks I have not been able to track our flights TOM48 and TOM49, the flight numbers didn't exist in any search, I have since discovered that Flightradar24 is tracking these flights under the flight numbers TOM29T and TOM39T, is this a glitch on Flightradar?  We've had nothing from TUI informing us of a change in flight number.

la531983

TOM48 (or BY48) looks fine here

BY48 (TOM48) TUI Airways Flight Tracking and History - FlightAware

DullGreyGuy

FlightRadar24 shows it fine under BY48, it uses the 2 letter code like departure boards etc do too

TOM29T is the call sign 

If you look up VS24 then you will see its live position about to land in LHR but if you try VRD24 it won't bring up anything as they dont use the three letter ICAO codes

TadleyBaggie

The flight numbers shown on tickets and the actual numbers used by air traffic are often different but related, for example:

easyJet flight EZY1234 would appear on flight tracking systems as U21234 ("EZY" is replaced by "U2")
British Airways BA123 would appear as BAW123 ("BA" is replaced by "BAW")

As in the example above, TUI flights have "TOM" replaced with "BY".

interstellaflyer

DullGreyGuy said:

FlightRadar24 shows it fine under BY48, it uses the 2 letter code like departure boards etc do too

TOM29T is the call sign 

If you look up VS24 then you will see its live position about to land in LHR but if you try VRD24 it won't bring up anything as they dont use the three letter ICAO codes

It does indeed show as TOM29T/BY48 however I've been tracking it up until 2 weeks aga as TOM48, the flight number on our paperwork.

DullGreyGuy

interstellaflyer said:

DullGreyGuy said:

FlightRadar24 shows it fine under BY48, it uses the 2 letter code like departure boards etc do too

TOM29T is the call sign 

If you look up VS24 then you will see its live position about to land in LHR but if you try VRD24 it won't bring up anything as they dont use the three letter ICAO codes

It does indeed show as TOM29T/BY48 however I've been tracking it up until 2 weeks aga as TOM48, the flight number on our paperwork.

Some airlines seem not to like their two letter code and think TOM or EZY are more memorable than BY or U2. Most the world will use their 2 letter code but budget airlines have managed to convince some airports to use their three letter so Gatwick shows EZY8344 will be landing 19:27 but Olbia's board shows that flight U28344 will be leaving at 18:10 to land at LGW at 19:27

bagand96

interstellaflyer said:

DullGreyGuy said:

FlightRadar24 shows it fine under BY48, it uses the 2 letter code like departure boards etc do too

TOM29T is the call sign 

If you look up VS24 then you will see its live position about to land in LHR but if you try VRD24 it won't bring up anything as they dont use the three letter ICAO codes

It does indeed show as TOM29T/BY48 however I've been tracking it up until 2 weeks aga as TOM48, the flight number on our paperwork.

As others have explained every flight has to have a "callsign" that is used for communication with Air Traffic Control.  This will always be the airline's 3 letter ICAO designator (TOM for TUI Airways UK) plus up to 4 alphanumeric characters.

The ATC callsign doesn't always match the flight number used for passengers, more often than not it doesn't as most airlines use numbers and letters for their callsigns to avoid confusion in busy ATC environments.

You're correct that this LGW-CUN flight did use ATC callsign TOM048 up until a couple of weeks ago.  Since then it has used TOM29T. Could be a number of reasons for the change, but there's no need to worry the ATC callsign isn't for passengers.

Your flight number will be as listed on your documents from TUI and will be shown as such at the airport.