

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

Hello,<p>I&#x27;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?<p>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&#x27;t change it...
======
edwhitesell
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
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
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
Yes, but the flight number is displayed before you submit your email address.

