Something wrong with the site as there’s loads of flights not being found. For example, BAW5CA, BAW8YG, BAW26E, BAW17V to name a few. They are all showing correctly on other tracking sites and I’ve just heard 2 of them on HF so they’re definitely active and airborne.
Try flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW95 for BAW8YG.
As mentioned in the airline tracking update, BAW, among other airlines, are having their true flight numbers shown.
Here’s a quote from the news release from the top of the home page:
Last year, British Airways, Virgin, and United (in some rare cases) began flying under flight identifiers that were not their flight number. For example, BAW11M instead of BAW287. This made the flights very difficult to track because there is often no pattern to the renumbering and users tracking BAW287, for example, would get no data other than “Scheduled” data. This is now corrected and we no longer use the alphanumeric assignments. You can now track the flight by the carrier and flight number now instead of by the arbitrary call sign.
WTF? 
So am I missing something here or have they just chosen to eliminate the vast majority of their hobby/enthusiast users in favour of the handful of passengers that use the site?
How does keying in BAW219 or BAW95 help anyone when the flight you’re seeing above you or hearing on your scanner is BAW17V or BAW8YG? It’s of absolutely no use whatsoever.
The crazy thing is that they had to have known all the alpha-numerical tie-ups in order to change the site to cater only for the ticket flight IDs so if they went to all that trouble why couldn’t they have created an alias that worked from keying in either ID?
Given that a large number of NAT flights now use alpha-numerical callsigns then this renders this site useless for any aviation enthusiasts and hobbyists.
What a seriously backwards and ill thought out step.
I guess what you’re missing is that the vast majority of users prefer the flight number rather than an arbitrary call sign. This was concluded after an extensive internal study about how people use FlightAware. The “handful” of airline travelers constitutes over a million people, by the way.
The crazy thing is that they had to have known all the alpha-numerical tie-ups in order to change the site to cater only for the ticket flight IDs so if they went to all that trouble why couldn’t they have created an alias that worked from keying in either ID?
Given that a large number of NAT flights now use alpha-numerical callsigns then this renders this site useless for any aviation enthusiasts and hobbyists.
What a seriously backwards and ill thought out step.
You’re right about how it works & we are working on a method that will allow you to search for a flight by the call sign (e.g., BAW17G) and we will either display the flight or redirect you to the correct flight number. Unfortunately, this didn’t make it into the release last week.
In the mean time, I will pass on your feedback to the development team and I’m certain that you have the aviation/internet know-how to find the flight # for these call signs.
Fair enough Dan, can’t argue with that if it’s in the ‘pipes’ to have both options available. I think that another day or so to make sure this was working would have made the release extra special though. It seems like us enthusiats/hobbyists were tossed aside as not being important with the way it was done. Remember that it was mainly us guys that got you where you’re at today through verbal and written recommendations and also links to you from our websites. 
As for sites that show the tie-ups between the ATC and ticket #, I’m not aware of any myself although in fairness I’ve never gone looking for them since all the info I needed was here!
Are you planning on doing same with SWR, AZA and VIR as well?
Btw you’ll have a big job on your hands if you plan to do same for the internal European stuff! The vast majority of the airlines use alpha-numerical over here.
I see a lot of flights that have are showing as an arrival, in flight that have arrived more than 24 hours ago.
VIR is already done, more coming soon. I think SKW is the largest offender left.
No Rob, you have this backwards.
It’s the voices of millions that speak louder then the few hobbyists.
I think business wise, the millions of casual visitors should speak louder then the savy tracker. You already have the knowledge and drive to search for what you need.
The casual tracker such as myself much rather have simplicity. Flight Aware probably gets more referrals from a casual user such as myself through word of mouth then “specialized” hobbyist websites (excluding high profile new reporting websites).
WADR I disagree, but there you go. 