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
;)

- heavens - must have chatted to LM a few times. Were you the guy who offered me a set of Encyclopedia Brit one night?:) 'Chug-a-lug' ring any bells?

TT, probably Kees S. You know alcohol would never pass my lips:hmm:

BOAC - the controllers' favourite airline. I would never swoop so low as to sell encyclopedias. The wife, yes. Encyclopedias, no.

yes we probably spoke many times. I was at Maastricht from day 1, first in the Brussels Sectors, lastly in the Deco lot.

the thing i find interesting is that this call sign methodology is not consistently applied. for example, the LHR - YUL sector still uses the 'speedbird niner fife' call sign, while the return uses '8 yankee golf' (as opposed to niner four). i would have thought if they would use one call sign methodology. i'm pretty sure tho that the YUL - LHR uses 8 yankee golf due to the fact that they follow speedbird 294 all the way across the pond.

I think it's rather clunky having some of those callsigns, as they are pretty hard to say. I think BA are quite lucky as they use the flight number where possible whereas Lufthansa use trigraphs. If everyone used the new system it would just be even more confusing, especially as Lufty change the callsigns every season. Intuitively I always thing they're "Fraction" rather than Lufty with those callsigns.

easyJet use the new system for UK domestic and LTN, but not LGW and STN.

I remember the chaos back in 1995 when BMA1 became BMA1NL, much less elegant but avoided the problem of
BMA1 GLA-LHR
BMA51 EDI-LHR
BMA81 BFS-LHR
BMA331 MME-LHR
BMA411 LBA-LHR all working Heathrow Director at the same time....

Would I be correct in saying that Dan-Air (UK) started this practice back in the 1980s ???

'speedbird niner five'

Surely, Mr Cholmondely-Warner you mean "Speedbird niner fife"? Have to be correct old chap.

- chug-a-lug or alpha-numerics?:)

Lon More - you have a PM.

Zooker...quite right...I believe it was because DanAir were amenable to giving ATC cheapies/freebies and as such we would not delay them(code word Chug-A-Lug). Allegedly:ok::ok::ok:

There's a rumour there might have been some 'dwinkies' involved too? It was good to see the tradition carried into the BA days post '92 but it gradually got diluted ('non-standard, don't you know?')

BA94 was Speedbird Niner Four up until mid 2008 when it was changed to 8YG. BA95 flew as Speedbird 7MY (iirc) for a while around the same time but was changed back to Speedbird Niner Fife.
Probably to do with BA294 as Thunderbug / bigjames mentioned, the change was probably caused by one of the flights being retimed or someone complaining.

I wish the people I work for would get into the alphanumerics. Picture 6331, 6321, 5231 and 1339 (to take just one example) all on frequency at the same time, late in the evening with thunderstorms doing their best to obscure the radio.

S.

Alphanumeric callsigns the next best thing since sliced bread ...
 

Personally, I don't believe alphanumeric callsigns are better than digits only when it comes to reducing confusion. Just think of all the alphanumeric tail numbers that fly around daily, plus it doesn't help if, for example, a certain UK airline that operates into Gatwick uses ABC12GW as a callsign. If other airlines come up with the same bright idea of choosing their callsigns after the airport the flight operates to or from ...

Where I work, I sometimes end up with callsigns like ABC787Y, DEF78DY, and GHI87Y which doesn|t do a lot more than tie up the tongues of everyone involved ... :ugh:

GW is Luton ;)

As a learning PPL - CAP413 does not seem to give any indication as to how and why these non registration compliant names are allocated. Surely registration would be more useflul than flight numbers.

I see there is alot of flexibility at the discression of the controller to avoid confusion as in abbreviating callsigns - but does G-XXXX have to sign on as such following cap413 - or do they just state speedbird xxxx.

Are the callsigns an unwritten rule ? or have I not got that far through CAP 413.

... and LGW is the IATA code for London Gatwick.

aha ;):ugh:

<<Surely registration would be more useflul than flight numbers.>>

jofm5 Yes, of course it would and many years ago commercial aircraft did use registration letters as callsign, as do the vast majority of light aircraft now. How to use the callsign is clearly explained in the R/T Manual.

Airlines use flight numbers because the flight plans for scheduled flights are stored in ATC computers worldwide. The flight plans are automatically activated for ATC purposes sometime prior to the scheduled time and all controllers who will be responsible for the flight are provided with flight plan details automatically. If registration letters were used, every one of those flight plans would either have to be individually filed or the airlines would have to notify ATC of the registrations of the aircraft on particular flights. To be honest, airlines often have trouble amending the aircraft type, which is why ATC requires pilots to confirm the type, so it woulod be a monumental nightmare messing with registrations.

Lastly, in the event of confusion ATC can request a pilot to use any callsign they choose but it doesn't happen too often.

<<Lastly, in the event of confusion ATC can request a pilot to use any callsign they choose but it doesn't happen too often>>

Which reminds me of the old tale of a callsign confusion where the controller in question told one of the pilots that from now on he would be known as "Bob"... just after the Blackadder series was fresh out I believe. Apparently the pilot was a bit of a stick in the mud and didn't see the funny side.

Cheers,
N

"Keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you're up to..."

Probably the same misery we had at Heathrow once. BEA Viscount went round, told us there was a lady stuck in the lavatory. We asked: "Will she be there from Monday to Saturday?" He filed a complaint... So, if you're reading this, Captain, you were a miserable ratbag!!!

Well . . . perhaps we should have said Monday to Sunday . . if she was feeling "All Week" :rolleyes:

Or . . IF she was . . "Alwight" . . perhaps that was the best place for her :cool:

Cheers . . 99