Qantas code you don’t want to see on your boarding pass

Have you ever thought to check your airline code when booking a flight? This traveller never did and had major regrets.

Back in the days when everyone had personal interactions with their travel agents, this was something that they would check for you.

If you were a nervous flyer, or claustrophobic, they knew it.

If part of your journey was on a small plane, you’d be warned to bring your valium.

But now that a lot of us are booking our domestic and international flights ourselves, there are some code checking tricks we need to know, Escape reports.

I unexpectedly flew on a tiny QantasLink Dash-8. I booked a flight to Adelaide from Melbourne and, not knowing the “check the code” trick, had no idea we would be flying on a ‘baby’ plane.

All was smooth as we sauntered to the gate but the second we stepped onto the tarmac many of the passengers started looking around, confused. It was a QantasLink plane that seated only 50 people – including the two flight attendants.

Keep an eye out for this four digit code. Picture: Danielle Norton

Almost immediately, a passenger had a confrontation with the flight attendant – she was angry that the plane was tiny and expressed this as she climbed the five steps from the tarmac to board the aircraft.

The flight attendant’s reaction was to check in on her, obviously concerned that she might make a scene.

The passenger felt she couldn’t speak about her anger at being on a small plane for fear of being turfed out before the flight began. She told me she definitely wouldn’t have booked her (very expensive) ticket on a small plane, had she known it was one.

About 10 minutes into the flight, a young passenger travelling with her mother had a panic attack and needed to have oxygen administered via a tank. When we landed she was wheeled off the plane in a wheelchair.

The flight attendants remained calm and professional while they helped her regulate but, as a passenger, I empathised with the patient. Being shocked by the tiny plane was slightly traumatising – especially when the options were to either board it or stay where I was and miss the trip.

Apparently a lot of passengers are shocked when they discover the size of the aircraft.

The flight attendant on board said that 70 per cent of people who take this particular (Saturday afternoon) Melbourne to Adelaide route experience “irritation and shock” when they discover that the plane is so small.

Luckily for us, she plied us with wine and gave us 101 reasons why the personalised service on a small flight was better for passengers, but it really struck me that if 70 per cent of passengers are still surprised by the size of the plane, something is going wrong somewhere along the line.

She gave us a very important tip about the numbers on the tickets to check when booking that help to identify plane types: “If your flight has a four digit airline code, it’s a smaller plane. When a flight has a 3 digit code, it’s a larger jet.”

On my next flight to Canberra for Escape I KNOW I’ll be travelling on a small plane this time! It’s not as small; I’ve checked my Qantas app and discovered that it’s not quite as tiny as my Adelaide flight – the rows don’t stop at 12 and they’re a 2-3 formation, rather than 2-2.

It’s not until you read the fine print, four pages into your ticketing agreement, when you get to the disclaimers, that there’s any mention of the plane being a Dash-8 (if you even know what that is). There you’ll also discover that all flights are subject to last minute aircraft changes.

So, my tip is: check to see whether your airline code has three or four numbers and be prepared next time you fly.

This article originally appeared on Escape and was reproduced with permission