"What's your registration and origin?"
 

Simple question (don't know if it happens everywhere though):

Why when landing at an airport ATC asks you what's your registration and point of departure? Doesn't repetitive flight plans include at least POD?

Thanks in advance

Escape Path

Repetitive flight plans don't exist in the part of the world I think you're referring to. The information you mention is included in the filed flight plan but it might not be available to the people in the tower - or maybe they just need to reconfirm it.

S.

Just don't reply " Reg is UFO! We're from Mars and there are more behind us!"
This can lead to a major sense of humour failure in some parts of the world.:=

We got that when we landed at Luxor.

It could be that the ATC unit you're talking about has a computerised logging system where all the boxes need to be filled, and that whoever provides them with flight data doesn't give them everything that's on the FPL.
The system at my unit for instance, requires not only departure point, callsign and registration (if different) but POB too.

babotika
 

I've seen RPL's here. I sort of understand they ask for registration since I haven't seen that information on the RPL, but it's the POD part that has got me thinking.

BTW, why is it necessary for ATC to know the registration of an airplane operating regular scheduled flights? Maybe just in case things go south?

Best regards

Escape Path

Different aircraft are slightly different and some have a different weight. Landing fees are based on weight so they need to know how much to charge.

So it may be a 737 700 originally bought for one airline or a different one bought for another. Therefore a different weight.

So that the airport operator can work out the bill and assign it to the correct aircraft.

Ok, thanks everybody :ok:

Best regards