Question about TUI air from an American controller
 

I'm a controller at Boston Center and there is a lot of confusion about the TUI air callsign here.

I don't remember reading any briefing items about the change, I came in one day and all the Thomson's had started calling themselves TUI air. The callsigns all had the TOM prefix, and not the TUI prefix in our system. I queried one of the pilots about it and he advised me the change had happened a few months prior (October I think), and it was now finalized. I found no information in our database for TOM using the TUI air callsign.

My colleagues and I continued to call them Thompson or TUI air, depending on how insistent the pilot was about it. I later heard rumors that the FAA would not recognize the change due to a similar sounding TUI jet already having been registered here.

4 months later, we're still using the callsigns interchangeably. Anyone have insight into what happened? Thank you.

Sounds like the constant EDV/ENY confusion at the moment. Gets interesting when both carriers have the same flight number.

New York Oceanic don’t think much of it either!

That is amazing.

Our safety action council briefed us there were enough mix-ups, they are going to change one of them.

Just call them "Smiley" or "Blue".

Add in WEN using Encore with similar flight numbers.

Someone put this on our company forum.
As one of your customers I can only agree its a mess, not just in the States but worldwide.
The history is that Thomson Airways was rebranded as Tui Airways to fit into the German parent group, and some bright spark decided that the callsign needed to change too, but not the TOM because that was too difficult ( expensive).
It has been approved at ICAO, but uptake amongst ATC is poor to say the least and I have every sympathy!:ugh::ugh:

Sounds like Chewy Air!:}