Ask HN: How can airports wifi know my flight number?

5 points by bjblazkowicz 11 years ago | 5 comments

Hello,

I'm here at heathrow-airport and the wifi login knows my flight number is advance? How is this possible? I cleared the cookie from my british-airways checkin session, but the wifi-system still guess the correct flight?

edit: Worth to notice is that I have made two connecting flights from heathrow during the last two days, and the wifi-login displayed the correct flight number both times. The flightnumber field is even disabled, you can't change it...

edwhitesell 11 years ago |

All of the "good" WiFi systems make it really easy to have information changed on the splash pages based on the Access Point (therefore the physical location, and coverage area, of the Access Point).

As @davismwfl speculated, they probably pull the flight status information from a data feed internal to the airline, or one of the third-party companies that provide this data. Then displaying it on the page is easy.

It's possible there are multiple gates served by one Access Point, and they may be listing the next flight to everyone. However, given the low cost of Access Points and cabling infrastructure in today's airports (vs. when I did this type of stuff 13 years ago), there's one Access Point at each gate (in the counter, above the ceiling tiles, etc). As long as you're not closer to a different gate, you'll always get the correct "next" flight.

Same SSID, low radio power outputs, non-overlapping channels (where possible) and most users would never know.

davismwfl 11 years ago |

Just a guess here. Maybe they put in the next flight out based upon the location of the Access Point? So if 4 gates are served by 1 AP, then the first flight leaving those 4 gates gets listed...

I have never heard of that before though, so I have no clue, just a guess.

joezydeco 11 years ago |

IIRC, doesn't Heathrow's "free" wifi want a name and/or email address before it lets you onto the net?

Perhaps it's cross-referencing your name w/boarding records for security purposes.

bjblazkowicz 11 years ago | |

Yes, but the flight number is displayed before you submit your email address.

lnanek2 11 years ago | |

Southwest WiFi seems to do this, and unlike Delta it is available under 10k feet, gate to gate. Something about satellite based vs. ground station based.