Originally Posted by
Whirlygig
I believe they don't even issue them anymore to individuals, only aircraft. Even then, there is probably a wealth of form-filling and a fat fee to pay.
A callsign is for a company or organisation, not an aircraft. The whole point is that ATC know (and can bill) the operator, not the owner.
It is to make things easy for everyone:
The crew don't have to remember a different reg no each time.
The passengers (if it's an airline) don't need to know the reg, just the route.
ATC can recognise a route from a flight number and have been known to coordinate flights for the same company.
Eurocontrol can bill the correct people first time instead of chasing owners and/or former owners.
Dispatch/accounts can tell who flew the flight if you use a pilot-identifying flight number or the date if you use that as the number or even the aircraft type.
It is/or was free if you can convince the CAA/ICAO that you have a good reason for having one. We got ours to simplify the job of the charge-collectors at the Nav Service providers....our callsign means that the bill comes to me, not the current registered owner, the former owner or the lessee. Easy.