Why Don't Airline Confirmations Include the Day of the Week?

[DonRocks]

I've noticed that when I reserve online (most recently on American Airlines), my e-ticket, and my e-reminders always include the date, but never include the day of the week. 

That might not sound like a big deal, but most people "think" in terms of "Saturday" as opposed to "Nov 12, 2016," and I don't see the harm in having both pieces of information, side-by-side, e.g., "Sat, Nov 12, 2016."

I suspect that *many* missed flights are due to people showing up at the airport on the wrong day because of this. The only reason I noticed this is because I was forced to take the extra step of finding out what day of the week a certain date was - it's only a minor nuisance, but if you forget to do it, or assume you know, you could end up standing in front of an empty airline counter, baggage in hand.

Just a thought ...

As a side note, within the past year, I showed up at Reagan instead of Dulles, all because I remembered "IAD," and thought that 'since DCA is Dulles, IAD must be Reagan.' Yes, I was kicking myself, and the airline was kind enough to reschedule me at no charge (a rarity in this day-and-age), but I think this type of mistake is easy to make as well. When I see "DCA," my brain sees the "D," and thinks "Dulles" - obviously, in this instance, I have nobody to blame but myself, as all confirmations also included the name of the airport in English. On a related note, I've found that - if you miss a flight - showing up late is better than not showing up at all. If the airlines see that you made an honest attempt to get to the airport, they tend to have more sympathy (at least, that has worked out in my favor a couple of times fairly recently). On the other hand, there was one instance when I was up until 2 AM driving in heavy snow, and said "to hell with it" regarding an early-morning flight the next morning - unbelievably, the airlines rescheduled me for free when they heard that story, and it was all done over the phone *after* the flight had left the next afternoon (another rarity).

[Rieux]

This  is especially important for flights that leave just after midnight. I've flown back from Peru and Chile several times and thought "I want to leave Friday night". I have to remember that midnight restarts the clock so I actually want to book for 12:05 am SATURDAY, not Friday.