Originally Posted by
Tight_chops
I'm a controller at Boston Center and there is a lot of confusion about the TUI air callsign here.
I don't remember reading any briefing items about the change, I came in one day and all the Thomson's had started calling themselves TUI air. The callsigns all had the TOM prefix, and not the TUI prefix in our system. I queried one of the pilots about it and he advised me the change had happened a few months prior (October I think), and it was now finalized. I found no information in our database for TOM using the TUI air callsign.
My colleagues and I continued to call them Thompson or TUI air, depending on how insistent the pilot was about it. I later heard rumors that the FAA would not recognize the change due to a similar sounding TUI jet already having been registered here.
4 months later, we're still using the callsigns interchangeably. Anyone have insight into what happened? Thank you.
Just call them "Smiley" or "Blue".