Boeing 737-800. Reg G-DVLA

[Sunshine Express]

This aircraft landed just after us into London Gatwick early Tuesday morning.

Brand new and shiny 737-800 with no company markings. Registration is G - DVLA.

Does anyone know whose it is? Please tell me that us UK taxpayers haven't bought it !

Also, after calling "company" the crew stated
that they didn't have a night landing restriction. So whose is it?

[LTN man]

According to the CAA web site at http://www.srg.caa.co.uk/aircraftregister/ginfo.asp that is updated nightly there is no G-DVLA. Maybe it has been stolen and has false plates. :eek:

[What_does_this_button_do?]

I do hope that G-DVLA letters aren't spaced inappropriately to try and make a word/name out of it.

Something like G-D VIA (there a few rivets through the bottom cross of the "L") :D

[Tarek Nor]

Could it be G-OXLA which Excel have on lease
from Miami Air. Its not in Excel colours.

[The Hipster]

Yep. T'was G-OXLA.

[Capt PPRuNe]

Just a quick explanation for those of you not from the UK and/or familiar with what DVLA means.

DVLA is the government agency here in the UK responsible for most things to do with cars. It stands for Driver & Vehicle Licencing Authority and the control the issuing of licences and in this case vehicle registration numbers.

They have a spin off company which earns tens of millions of pounds a year selling licence numbers. The cheapest is £250 and the more unique ones are sold at auction for 100 times more than that! They also have strict rules on how the licence plate appears on vehicles.

The current numbering of vehicle licence plates here in the UK is in the format Y NNN XXX where Y is a letter denoting the year of registration, NNN is a number between 1 and 999 and XXX is a three letter combination except for the letters I and Q and another one (I think).

For example the registration P 1 LOT is worth a small fortune whereas S 376 NND will never sell if it hasn't been registered yet. The reference to the spacing of the letters in one of the above posts is because the DVLA get very cross when people don't use the correct format and spacing on the registration plate as well as use screws to alter the appearance of certain letters.

Now off to Aircrew Notices with this.