United internal fleet codes?
 

Greetings all,

I was wondering if anyone knows of a source for UA (and United Express) internal fleet codes. I work on the ground handling side of the house, and need to translate internal fleet codes into standard IATA codes. For example, I know that UA refers to some A319s as 19Js depending on the configuration. DL has a similar system, and I'm sure many other carriers do as well; I have a document detailing DL's internal codes, but could use something similar for UA. Right now I need to find the codes for the various United Express aircraft and carriers as well as an explanation as to the differences between the 73A, 73F and 73V.

Thanks,
Ryan

Sorry, that information is highly classified. In order to be considered for the appropriate clearance, you must first prove your awesomeness.

Is there a list of potential challenges to complete, or is the notion that I moved from bag-smasher/ramp rat to management analyst sufficient? :confused:

Wearing a tie is disqualifying. Submit picture sans tie and clipboard and your request will be processed within the appropriate committee.;)

I tried to do this once as needed to 'translate' MVT messages such as below which sometimes included internal a/c type codes into a standard format. Because there were so many variables and omissions, the project was dropped. I do recall though that some of the carriers were able to provide encoding/decoding.

$DTE CHNG FLT$ ORIG 30DEC
ORD 1800 T3 K12
LHR $ T3 332 0745
3ORD/ETD1825 MNTC *1823
4ORD/OUT1826 OFF1843 *1843
2LHR/IN0737 *0140

0928/30DEC
P ORD/OUT 547P E00.03 )
P ORD/OFF 608P
P LHR/ON 718A
P LHR/IN 726A E00.29 )
D CRC//LHR POSSIBLE DELAYS DUE TO STRONG WINDS
SKED ORD ORIG 550P GTD C15 SHIP 6460
LHR 755A TERM 1 GTA B33

0603/30DEC
P LHR/OUT 2114. L/2114.Z DL 6 A/C G-VAIR
P LHR/OFF 2135. L/2135.Z A/C G-VAIR
P CPT/ON 1118. L/0918.Z A/C G-VAIR
P CPT/IN 1124. L/0924.Z A/C G-VAIR
SKED LHR ORIG 2105.
CPT 1110. TERM 1

No ties (except for my interview, and no, I don't own a suit), and no clipboard. Just a desk jockey trying not to let Sabre drive me over the edge... Keep in mind that this is coming from a former programmer/network admin, so computers don't scare me; infuriate, yes, but scare, no.

I wish that I had registrations at the very least, but since this is more of a long-range forecast, they can't yet nail down which particular aircraft will be flying on any given day.


I found some data...

Airbus A320
20D - 12/132
20V - 12/132 - overwater
20B - 12/126
20U - 12/126 - overwater

Boeing 767-300
67D - 34/210 - Hawaii
67I - 5/26/151 - International

Boeing 777-200
77C - 12/49/197 - 777A - MTOW 445.0
77A - 34/210 - 777A - Domestic - MTOW 445.0
77P - 10/45/198 - 777B - MTOW 303.9
77I - 12/49/197 - 777B - MTOW 303.9

Boeing 747-400
47C - 12/52/310

Boeing 757-200
57Q - 24/158
57P - 12/26/72 - PS Service
57X - 24/158 - ETOPS Overwater
57U - 24/158 - Non-Etops - Overwater

...but I could still need the full list. Does anyone have a good source for this?


Thanks again,
Ryan

Go to the internet and search for planebase.

Its a spotters type db listing airline fleets etc and includes line numbers. You can search it by various fields and its kept up to date. More to the point, its free!

You know what makes me laugh here is that United Airlines is still using such a code system in the first place.

These codes were established decades ago when teletype machines were in use for much the same reasons we have abbreviated weather codes in METARs and TAFs.

The whole thing was designed to reduce transmission time and to mitigate bandwidth constraints caused by the technology of the era. It was also designed to save paper.

Now that we live in an age of paperless cockpits, ticketless travel, and high bandwidth communications this is all obsolete.

I guess maybe my dispatch releases, company notams, and load sheets may be a bit longer but I can read them twice as fast.

Thanks for the info on PlaneBase. Although it looks interesting, it doesn't appear to have the specific category of data that I'm looking for, namely the non-standard, carrier-specific internal sub-fleet codes.

Forgive the thickness, but if you're close enough to United to have access to the kind of data feed that would include the internal fleet codes, then shouldn't you be close enough to someone at the airline to ask for a translation list?

I deal every so often with data provided by a different US domestic carrier, and they're quite responsive with any questions I have.

I am seeking this information on behalf of my boss who is working on a sales project. We may be somewhat close to UA, but we don't want to ask questions that may put us at a disadvantage in the bid. I doubt that there is anything highly confidential about this information since the configurations of the various aircraft are publicly available, but condensing all sources of info down into "UA-speak" via a simple list of IATA-to-UA codes would just make life that much simpler, for this project and others going forward. Why they can't either a) use standard codes, or b) provide an appropriate translation, is beyond my ability to understand. Sales is a far different world than operations, to say the least.

This is the same airline that, according to some of their documentation, flies 4 weeks a month; what they do during the other 4 weeks of the year are never explained. Given this last bit of confusion, the fact that they didn't provide proper aircraft type information comes as no great surprise.