I have a friend arriving from overseas tomorrow and I have lost all of the
arrival information. The only information I have is their name, the
day of arrival, the departure city and the arrival airport. How do I
find out which flight, which airlines and at what time my friend will be arriving?

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Request for Question Clarification by missy-ga on 02 Aug 2002 06:49 PDT

Hi Conor,

Do you know what time he's due to arrive?

The arrival airport may have a webpage which lists all incoming
flights in a specific time frame.  If he's coming in from say,
Stockholm to Chicago, you ought to be able to locate the flight easily
if you know what time he's due in.  (How many flights are going to be
coming in from Stockholm in a 2 hour period?  Not many.)

If you can give me the information you already have (arrival day,
departure city, arrival city and airport), and the arrival time (or
your best guess), I can try to track your friend's flight down for
you.


--Missy

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Request for Question Clarification by tehuti-ga on 02 Aug 2002 07:41 PDT

Passenger lists are not finalised until all passengers have boarded
the plane.  Therefore, even the airport will not know anything in
advance about your friend's journey.  I think that the only thing you
can do is find out from the arrival airport, or from elsewhere, the
times of all planes arriving from the departure airport, and be
prepared for your friend to be on any of them.  If another researcher
is able to correct me on this, that's great, but personally I don't
feel too hopeful of an easy answer to your problem.

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:02 PDT

THe only information I have is she is departing Prague Airport and
ariving at JFK on August 3rd, Saturday. I am not sure about the time
but I believe it is in the evening. My worry is that I am unsure.

Knowing the departure city may be that helpful since there would
definitely be connections.

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:10 PDT

To tehuti-ga

Will the airport (don't really know who this is specifically) once
they have the passenger list, access it for me, search for name and
let me know which plane she will be on?

And what department of the airport shall I contact?

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:13 PDT

ooops

Knowing the departure city may _not_ be that helpful, since there would
definitely be connections.

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Request for Question Clarification by iaint-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:15 PDT

Have you any idea at all what airlines or what approximate timeframes
your friend might be using? A search of all flights from Prague to JFK
on 3rd August at http://travel.airwise.com/schedules/index.html lists
over 30 arrivals due into New York that day, the earliest ones are due
to land at 12:15 and the latest ones at 21:10. Unless you can dredge
some more information up it looks horribly like you might have to be
prepared to spend 9 hours or more at the airport.

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:31 PDT

to iaint,

First, I am unable to get the site to work. I enter PRG to JFK, the
dates, click "get flights" and the same initial page shows up without
the informationa I entered.

No, I know nothing more. 9 hours at the airport is exactly what I am
trying to avoid. If I am to do it, I may as well do it correctly and
that list of 30 flights would be very helpful. Did you see any
arriving at exactly 19:30? That number has been in my head, buut I
don't trust it, especially since I have to find any flight coming in
exactly at that time.

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Request for Question Clarification by iaint-ga on 02 Aug 2002 08:58 PDT

Sorry conor, I should have mentioned that you need to specify a return
date before that site provides you with a flight list. Simply enter
anything (I chose a month later) because in this case you really don't
care what the return information is.

To save you the trouble however, this is the list of flights from PRG
to JFK for Saturday 3rd August, 2002. There is a flight due to arrive
at 19:25, a United Airlines flight number UA 3519 (note that the
European portion of this flight is Lufthansa LH 3315 to Paris CDG
where the UA flight is caught). Perhaps this is the one your friend
will be on, if you had "7:30" at the back of your mind.

Depart     Arrive   Flight Num          Via
 6:50am     2:15pm  OK 0630 / IV 0001   BRU
 6:50am     3:25pm  DL 7276* / 0141     BRU
 6:50am     3:25pm  OK 0630 / DL 0141   BRU
 7:15am    12:15pm  KL 3120* / 6641*    AMS
 7:15am    12:15pm  KL 3120* / NW 0061  AMS
 7:15am    12:15pm  OK 0616 / KL 6641*  AMS
 7:15am    12:15pm  OK 0616 / NW 0061   AMS
 7:15am     1:15pm  DL 7278* / 0081     AMS
 7:15am     1:15pm  KL 3120* / DL 0081  AMS
 7:15am     1:15pm  OK 0616 / DL 0081   AMS
 7:30am     1:55pm  AA 6247* / 0065     ZRH
 7:30am     1:55pm  LX 1499 / AA 0065   ZRH
 7:30am     1:55pm  LX 1499 / 3000*     ZRH
 7:30am     3:10pm  AA 6247* / 6202*    ZRH
 7:30am     3:10pm  LX 1499 / AA 6202*  ZRH
 7:30am     3:10pm  LX 1499 / 0016      ZRH
 8:35am     3:25pm  MA 6829* / 0090     BUD
 8:35am     3:25pm  MA 6829* / NW 8776* BUD
 8:35am     3:25pm  OK 0786 / MA 0090   BUD
 8:35am     3:25pm  OK 0786 / NW 8776*  BUD
 9:45am     3:25pm  MA 0821 / 0090      BUD
 9:45am     3:25pm  MA 0821 / NW 8776*  BUD
10:45am     3:25pm  LH 3265 / DL 0107   FRA
10:45am     4:20pm  LH 3265 / 0406      FRA
10:45am     4:20pm  LH 3265 / UA 3550*  FRA
10:45am     4:20pm  UA 3737* / 3550*    FRA
11:50am     8:40pm  OS 5706 / 0085      VIE
11:50am     8:40pm  OS 5706 / UA 9531*  VIE
12:30pm     3:45pm  DL 7301*            direct
12:30pm     3:45pm  OK 0050             direct
12:30pm     8:35pm  OK 0104 / AA 4847*  YUL
 1:35pm     9:10pm  OK 0622 / KL 0643   AMS
 1:35pm     9:10pm  OK 0622 / NW 8643*  AMS
 2:05pm     7:25pm  LH 3315 / 0404      FRA
 2:05pm     7:25pm  LH 3315 / UA 3519*  FRA
 4:20pm     9:10pm  KL 1356 / 0643      AMS
 4:20pm     9:10pm  KL 1356 / NW 8643*  AMS

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Request for Question Clarification by tehuti-ga on 02 Aug 2002 09:33 PDT

There are only two direct flights Prague-JFK, which appear to be
simultaneous.  These may be one and the same flight, because it says
that the Delta flight is operated by Czech airlines, however, two
different terminals are given (or perhaps that is a mistake?):

Flight: OK 050   
Airline: Czech Airlines  
Depart: Prague 
Departure Time: 12:30, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Arrive: New York J F Kennedy International Apt  
Terminal: 3 Delta Air Lines  
Arrival Time: 15:45, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Stops: Non-Stop  
Travel Time: 555 minutes or 9hrs 15mins  


Airline: Delta Air Lines  
Operated by: Czech Airlines   
Depart: Prague 
Terminal:   
Departure Time: 12:30, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Arrive: New York J F Kennedy International Apt  
Terminal: Terminal 1  
Arrival Time: 15:45, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Stops: Non-Stop  
Travel Time: 555 minutes or 9hrs 15mins  

I did not see an arrival at exactly 19.30.  A Lufthansa/United flight,
which leaves Prague at 14:05 and requires a change in Frankfurt
arrives at 19.25:
Airline: United Airlines  
Operated by: Lufthansa German Airlines   
Depart: Frankfurt International Apt 
Terminal: Terminal 1  
Departure Time: 17:15, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Arrive: New York J F Kennedy International Apt  
Terminal: Terminal 1  
Arrival Time: 19:25, Saturday 3 August 2002  
Stops: Non-Stop  
Travel Time: 490 minutes or 8hrs 10mins  

Did your friend mention whether she had to transfer betweeen planes?

I'm not sure that airlines provide information from their passenger
lists.  A law was introduced this year, which obliges them to provide
the names to US Customs.  That seems to imply that they do not usually
give out the information to others.  Perhaps the JFK Airport
information line will be able to clarify this:  (718) 244-4444 (I'm in
the UK so not able to ring on your behalf).  They might also be able
to tell you whether it is possible to have your friend paged at
regular intervals during the day, so that she can call you when she
arrives (of course that is not much help if you are a long distance
away!).

Sorry to be so negative

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 02 Aug 2002 11:01 PDT

The chances are that she will have a connection.

I will certainly try to page her at the airport, but there may be
multiple terminals involved.

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Clarification of Question by conor-ga on 05 Aug 2002 12:32 PDT

I don't believe that there is an answer to this question, since most
agree that more information would be required to to find out "which
flight, which airline, and what time".

I believe that a complete answer to this question skates very close to
giving out personal information which is not permitted by Google!
since it could be used to locate any individual someone suspects is
flying in.

I am only asking for public information. If I asked how I would find
someone's phone number and you responded with "dial 411". Wouldn't
that be the same thing, since anyone could use that information to
locate somone?

Hi, please understand that I'm not criticizing you and whether it is
actually a permissible question is entirely up to the editors here,
not me.

That said, I do have concerns about this question. You ask about "411"
and that makes a lot of sense. After all, people's names, phone
numbers, and addresses are published in phone books but it's my
personal understanding of the rules that we researchers aren't
permitted to look up someone and publish that information here. It's
also my understanding that the editors forbid telling someone where to
find personal information for themselves even if there is no legal
restriction on them using the sources we list.

Again, I am not saying anything against you personally, I'm certain
you have an excellent, perfectly legitimate reason for seeking this
information, and that the person you are seeking would probably be
very happy if we helped you but I still think it falls outside our
rules here to answer the question.

However, as I said above, from me this is merely an expression of
concern.  It's entirely up to the editors to make this decision so
don't be concerned that you will be denied an answer because of what I
say - obviously some other researchers believe this is a fully
legitimate question which they can answer and that's up to them.

8-2-2002

Try to narrow your search down to the names of exactly which specific
airlines would have flights from Prague to JFK.  Maybe a travel agent
could assist you with the name of the 1 or 2 major airlines that would
qualify.

SINCERELY
4keith-ga

For what it's worth, I once had a friend flying in to JFK, but was
told there that for a variety of reasons, he was in fact on another
flight en route to La Guardia.  I called the various airlines at
LaGuardia, they checked their lists, and told me the flight.

Granted, this was pre 9/11 and the flight was already in progress, but
it might be worth a try... Call the major airlines with hubs at JFK,
and see if they're willing/able to tell you if she has a reservation
on a flight tomorrow.  If you have no luck with a reservations agent,
try customer service.  You can't be the only person this has ever
happened to!

Dear conor,

In my humble opinion, it would be worth searching for the information
again, unless you know it is definitely impossible to retrieve.

Regards,