Were you aware of this operational difference?

Passengers desire reassurances on their journey through an airport to make sure that they arrive at the gate in time before departure. Departures boards are often the first port of call for passengers seeking this information.

Passengers are provided with a vast array of information when transiting an airport terminal. Departure boards are arguably one of the most important. They provide essential flight information but can also be the source of comfort, frustration and distress.

In an industry with international standards and common practice, the departure board is an exception. Flight Information Display System (FIDS) is the official term for a departure board. They come in varying sizes, are often branded with airport logos, and can also be used for advertising, but there is no consistent style or configuration.

All FIDS provide the essential information for passengers, including destination, flight number, airline, and departure gate. They can provide live data on boarding times, revised departure times, gate changes, delays, and cancellations. There is no common method or order of displaying this data, so there are differences in how it is presented to passengers.

In much of the world, the FIDS screens are sorted in chronological order with the next scheduled departure at the top of the list. The flight number, destination, and gate will then follow. As flights depart, they will disappear from the board and subsequent flights will move up.

In North America, the tendency is to sort the flight information by destination in alphabetical order. If there are several flights throughout the day to one destination, they will all be displayed in successive rows. At some major airports, there may be different FIDS screens for each airline, particularly in the US where terminals can be operated by airlines.

There are several reasons for displaying the flight information in a different format. At large airports with frequent departures, it can be easier to search for your flight by destination, even if there are multiple flights to the same airport. The argument is that you will always know where you are flying to but may not recall the specific time.

Depending on your ticket, it may also be possible to rebook to an earlier or later flight, and the options are clearer if all the flights to the destination are arranged alphabetically. This is particularly useful for frequent flyers and business passengers on routes with multiple departures throughout the day. For connecting passengers, it may be quicker to scan an alphabetically arranged departure board than the departure time, particularly in large hub airports.

There are no industry formatting rules for departure boards. One theory from Europe is that airports followed the chronological format of railway stations. Anecdotally, passengers in North America appear to prefer flights listed in alphabetical order and the rest of the world prefers the chronological configuration.

In the pre-internet age, the departure board provided travelers with the essential information they needed. Nowadays, passengers have more information than ever and can find this themselves. In some instances, they even have more up-to-date information than airport and airline staff. Do we even need the departure board?

The last thing passengers do before boarding the aircraft is a visit to the toilet and a final check of the departure board. Despite having live information on smartphones, passengers like the reassurance, and there are passengers without the means or inclination to check information themselves, so they rely on the departure boards.

They will continue to be a crucial source of information for passengers, regardless of the format.

Iain is an aviation consultant with many years of experience in airport planning and design. Iain has advised airport operators, investors and aviation regulators on all aspects of airport planning and has extensive experience of writing airport master plans. Based in Scotland