Inbound/Outbound flights? (2025)

Hello amigos!

Inbound flights= Domestic flights whereas Outbound flights= International ones? My clue is correct?

Thanks,

Sam

cuchuflete said:

Agreeing with Pedro, and with a slightly different perspective: Inbound trains, buses, flights are coming to the speaker's location, while the outbound ones are leaving from that location. Of course if you are not at the airport or train station, Pedro's definitions are perfect.

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What do you mean by speaker's location?
Thanks

Pilusanto said:

What do you mean by speaker's location?
Thanks

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Where the speaker (of the words) is.

I saw on tv
bound AA flight gets off a minute after ...

se16teddy said:

Where the speaker (of the words) is.

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Okay. Thanks

Andygc said:

I do not understand Cuchuflete's input. It is not the speaker's location that matters, it is the location to or from which the flight is going. I can be in Dorking, but the flight going over my head is either an inbound or an outbound flight to or from Heathrow. It is not described relative to Dorking.

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If I am in Dorking and see a plane descending towards Heathrow, for me it is an inbound flight. If I am in Dorking and see a plane gaining altitude having departed from Heathrow, for me it is an outbound flight.

sambistapt said:

Inbound flights= Domestic flights whereas Outbound flights= International ones?

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No, if something is inbound it is travelling inwards, and if it is outbound it is travelling outwards.
Similarly, on the London Underground, the eastbound platform is for trains travelling towards the east, and the westbound platform is for trains travelling towards the west.
http://www.englishonline.org.cn/files/images/underground_westbound.Thumbnail.JPG

se16teddy said:

If I am in Dorking and see a plane descending towards Heathrow, for me it is an inbound flight. If I am in Dorking and see a plane gaining altitude having departed from Heathrow, for me it is an outbound flight.

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Yes, but it is its relationship to the airport that decides if it is inbound or outbound.

You could be mistaken in what you are seeing - it could be an inbound flight that has overshot the runway and is rejoining the stack - it would still be an inbound flight even though you have the illusion that it is departing.

A flight travels from Heathrow to Portland, Maine, U.S.A.

From the perspective of a person at Heathrow it is an outbound flight.

That same aircraft, from the perspective of someone waiting at the Portland Jetport to meet a passenger on that flight, is an inbound flight.

To an air traffic controller, communicating with the pilot from Newfoundland, Canada,
the flight may be identified by, in addition to the airline name and flight number, terms such as "outbound from LHR" or "inbound to PWM". Which term is used will depend on the proximity of the aircraft to its airport of departure or arrival.

Yes, I think that was my point. The location of the person using the phrase is irrelevant to its use or meaning, it is the relationship between the aircraft and its point of departure or its destination that matters. I felt that your adding in the speaker's location as a factor in the meaning was a potential source of confusion.

Putting that debate aside, at least the original question has been answered.

I think the most useful way to consider this, for someone who has booked a return flight from A to B (and back), is that the first flight, going from A to B, is the outbound, and the flight returning from B to A is the inbound (which leaves out the confusing bit about a speaker's location; you could be in Paris and book a return flight from Sidney to Hong Kong, and the fact you are in Paris makes absolutely no difference as to which of these two flights -- from Sidney to Hong Kong, or back -- are inbound and outbound; the first is out- the second inbound).

In other words, in a round-trip, outbound is the journey there and inbound the return.

jlan said:

I think the most useful way to consider this, for someone who has booked a return flight from A to B (and back), is that the first flight, going from A to B, is the outbound, and the flight returning from B to A is the inbound (which leaves out the confusing bit about a speakers location; you could be in Paris and book a return flight from Sidney to Hong Kong, and the fact you are in Paris makes absolutely no difference as to which of these two flights -- from Sidney to Hong Kong, or back -- are inbound and outbound; the first is out- the second inbound).

In other words, in a round-trip, outbound is the journey there and inbound the return.

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I would say that's a specialized subset of usage, restricted to return tickets and round trips.
A simple way to look at this more generally might be- inbound= on the way to land (at the previously mentioned or implied airport) outbound= about to or just took off. Context should establish the identity/location of the airport

Andygc said:

Only for the person taking the flight. ...

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Andygc said:

... For the relatives meeting the traveller in Hong Kong the flight from Sydney is inbound and the flight going back to Sydney is outbound.

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No. When I'm picking up a relative at the airport, I'm looking for arrivals. And when I'm dropping them off for their return flight, I'm looking for departures. I have never seen an airport in the world display these as "inbound" and "outbound" flights.​

JulianStuart said:

I would say that's a specialized subset of usage, restricted to return tickets and round trips. ...

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Right. And that's where you usually encounter this vocabulary (on your flight booking, or when booking a flight). Unless maybe you're working in air traffic control...​

jlan said:

No. When I'm picking up a relative at the airport, I'm looking for arrivals. And when I'm dropping them off for their return flight, I'm looking for departures. I have never seen an airport in the world display these as "inbound" and "outbound" flights.​

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And as has been said before, arrivals are inbound flights and departures are outbound flights.

SwissPete said:

A flight is outbound as it leaves, and inbound as it arrives.

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Yes, but every flight both leaves somewhere and arrives somewhere (hopefully), so this is not particularly helpful a definition for someone who wants to know which one is their inbound and which one is their outbound flight on a round trip (both will be both, indeed, for different people at different locations, but that again is not useful for the person trying to distinguish).

As I put it above, for someone making a return/round trip (which is the situation in which, I believe, the confusion or query is most likely to arise), the outbound is the journey from the origin to the destination and the inbound is the journey back.

And there is no logical reason why it should be so, and not the other way round, which is why it is confusing (as with 12 a.m. and p.m. to denote noon or midnight). It is by convention only that in a round trip the origin is taken as vantage point to define which flight is in- and outbound. If the convention had taken the perspective of the destination (i.e. where the round trip goes to and returns from), it would be the other way round. (On a return/round trip from London to Dublin, the flight from London to Dublin is both going out of London and in to Dublin, and the return is going out of Dublin and in to London, so it is not clear which one should be considered in- and which outbound, if one does not know the convention. I personally would be inclined to consider the destination -- where it is I am taking a trip to -- as more important, and hence the flight there as inbound, and the flight back as outbound, but that's not how it works in common usage -- it's the other way round).

What a confusing thread!

Therefore, I merely want to offer my support for jlan's explanations. In the context of a round-trip ticket, the outbound flight is the one from your starting point to your destination, the inbound flight is the flight back from your destination to your original starting point. Thus, one can also speak of outbound travel, an outbound ticket, the outbound train, etc., always referring to the first leg of a round-trip voyage. <-----Non-English phrases removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->