Airline Call Signs [moved from Ask the Pilot thread]

[JohnM]

[mod hat]
Note that this thread has commenced by moving several posts from the Ask the Pilot thread. This topic have responses from a wider part of the AFF community, and the potential to grow into its own discussion, so better to have its own thread than glog up the Ask The Pilot thread.
[/mod hat]

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good show, and gave a quite good idea of what goes on, especially the ATC stuff.

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I've just watched the first two episodes. Agree that it's very informative - especially the ATC and the wake turbulence demonstration.

They referred to BA's call sign as being 'Speedbird'. What is the call sign for Qantas (and any others that we commonly see in Australia - eg. Virgin Australia, Emirates etc.) and how were they derived and universally agreed upon?

 

[andmiz]

Re: Ask The Pilot

They referred to BA's call sign as being 'Speedbird'. What is the call sign for Qantas (and any others that we commonly see in Australia - eg. Virgin Australia, Emirates etc.) and how were they derived and universally agreed upon?

Qantas is 'Qantas', Virgin is 'Velocity', Emirates is 'Emirates'. Within Australia, some of the other common callsigns are Go-Cat (Tiger), Q-Jet (Qlink/Cobham), Q-Link, Jetstar, Rex, Unity (Alliance). They're derived by the airline (or by the marketing department in Virgin's case), and applied through the country's air navigation provider or regulator.

 

[markis10]

Re: Ask The Pilot

Qantas is 'Qantas', Virgin is 'Velocity', Emirates is 'Emirates'. Within Australia, some of the other common callsigns are Go-Cat (Tiger), Q-Jet (Qlink/Cobham), Q-Link, Jetstar, Rex, Unity (Alliance). They're derived by the airline (or by the marketing department in Virgin's case), and applied through the country's air navigation provider or regulator.

Not quite right, the airline applies to ICAO to register their preferred callsign or as ICAO defines it, telephony designator, so that there are no repeats across the aviation world.

FWIW when doing a handoff, many ATC'ers seemed to get Speedbird and Birdseed mixed up.

 

[mjt57]

Re: Ask The Pilot

And weren't Pan Am's aircraft/flights called "clippers"?

 

[markis10]

Re: Ask The Pilot

And weren't Pan Am's aircraft/flights called "clippers"?

Yes, a hail back to the flying boat days.

 

[oz_mark]

Re: Ask The Pilot

Qantas is 'Qantas', Virgin is 'Velocity', Emirates is 'Emirates'. Within Australia, some of the other common callsigns are Go-Cat (Tiger), Q-Jet (Qlink/Cobham), Q-Link, Jetstar, Rex, Unity (Alliance). They're derived by the airline (or by the marketing department in Virgin's case), and applied through the country's air navigation provider or regulator.

AFAIK, Virgin wanted one call sign (they used to have 4), and apparently they couldn't use Virgin on the international flights, so that was out.
Not really sure how much there is to be gained by marketing choosing the name...

 

[bass_ke]

Re: Ask The Pilot

Down at OOL we have Xanadu and Scooter as Air Asia X and Scoot

 

[jukebox333]

Re: Ask The Pilot

Yep, that'd work: I'm guessing pax on Scoot have about the same shoulder room as in an A4...

 

[Fruitcake]

Re: Ask The Pilot

It was better back in the Old Days when the callsigns were registration based - one could impress the ladies by knowing that Hotel Yankee Bravo was an AN A320, or that Tango Juliet Alpha was a QF 737 .

 

[jb747]

Re: Ask The Pilot

Yep, that'd work: I'm guessing pax on Scoot have about the same shoulder room as in an A4...

I suspect I'd be more comfortable in the A4....

 

[markis10]

Re: Ask The Pilot

I suspect I'd be more comfortable in the A4....

With the callsign "checkmate"?