Callsign Speedbird 8 Yankee Golf
 

Hello,

I don't know if this is the right place to ask but:

Yesterday night I was flying over Montreal, Canada, and I heard an aircraft calling as 'Speedbird 8 Yankee Golf'. Now I am sure it was British Airways Flight 094 YUL-LHR, but why don't they use the standard 'Speedbird 094' callsign?

Any info appreciated. Thanks.

There's probably a similar callsign for another flight operating at either end at the same time, so they change the BA callsign to avoid confusion. It's a pain in the ass to be honest as they always choose a really long alternative which just ties up the airwaves.

thanks a lot carnage matey! i never thought about this!

I don't think so. More and more airlines change callsigns of their flights by replacing flight numbers by a combination of numbers and letters, to reduce risk of callsign confusion. This is becoming a rule rather than exception.

BA is just following something, which is becoming standard in Europe.

Why do they name BA2708 EGKK-LEPA BAW7PW though?

Becuase theres a similar callsign for the return that they keep the same - BAW2709 Instead of say BAW7WP etc..

I think it's also partly to do with the fact that 4 digit callsigns are the ones most frequently confused (ABC1378 vs ABC1738).

NW3

although speedbird 94 is pretty easy. perhaps the issues arise when they get to the other side of the pond and there are a whole fleet of speedbird call signs going on.

and i have checked, there is only one BA flight departing Montreal every night.

affirmative. + they usually depart around 9 or 10 pm, I was with Montreal Tower at 10:15 pm when they took off, and there was not much traffic. So the problem of callsigns sounding alike must arise when they reach UK as you said.

I think this is a good practice from BA to change callsigns in order to avoid confusion.
If only others would follow!

It happens regularly that we have confusion with KLM's inbound to EHAM:
KLM1264, KLM1624, KLM1426, etc... And if you have one pilot not paying attention, it's a pain in the :mad:

The BA94 arrives at LHR at pretty much the same time as the BA294 from ORD. You can see the potential for confusion! :ok:

The BA142 and the BA124 is a good one at 6 o'clock in the morning when all are tired!:eek:

BA294
 

Thunderbug, good point, and according to FlightAware, speedbird 294 overflies montreal at about exactly the same time as 94 is taking off. so i guess one follows the other pretty closely across the whole flight plan. i think we have our answer!

In Australia,we say the numbers as paired groups so that confusion is minimised, eg, in the example above, KLM twelve sixty-four, KLM sixteen twenty-four, KLM fourteen twenty-six. If you do it this way, they won't sound the same!

Lufthansa have been using trigraph callsigns for some time - about time other airlines cottoned onto the benefits...

good tip JulieFlyGal!

Actually BA has been doing this certainly since the 90's. We used to operate the LGW-VIE schedule as 84WW (?2884? to LOWW) - which caused Maastricht to refer to us as 'Speedbird 84 double scotch':)

TOM and EZY also do it as well now!!
LH have done this for a long while--can be a pain if i am checking flights for my other half to meet at LGW-EZY ft nos can be easily decoded,-TOM not so simple:ugh:

Dates back at least 20 years IIRC. It began with a BALPA initiative to reduce callsign confusion. Finally being implemented

Know anything about the Double Scotch callsign Lon ??????
Sounds like somthing in your department!

TT
;)