HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

This is a
list A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
of airline codes. The table lists IATA's two-character airline designators, ICAO's three-character airline designators and the airline call signs (telephony designator). Historical assignments are also included.ht


IATA airline designator

IATA airline designators, sometimes called IATA reservation codes, are two-character codes assigned by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the world's
airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...
s. The standard is described in IATA's ''
Standard Schedules Information Manual The Standard Schedules Information Manual (SSIM) published by the International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been describ ...
'' and the codes themselves are described in IATA's ''Airline Coding Directory''. (Both are published semiannually.) The IATA codes were originally based on the ICAO designators which were issued in 1947 as two-letter airline identification codes (see the section below). IATA expanded the two-character-system with codes consisting of a letter and a digit (or vice versa) e.g.
EasyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airli ...
's U2 after ICAO had introduced its current three-letter-system in 1982. Until then only combinations of letters were used. Airline designator codes follow the format xx(a), i.e., two alphanumeric characters (letters or digits) followed by an optional letter. Although the IATA standard provides for three-character airline designators, IATA has not used the optional third character in any assigned code. This is because some legacy computer systems, especially the "central reservations systems", have failed to comply with the standard, notwithstanding the fact that it has been in place for twenty years. The codes issued to date comply with IATA Resolution 762, which provides for only two characters. These codes thus comply with the current airline designator standard, but use only a limited subset of its possible range. There are three types of designator: unique, numeric/alpha and controlled duplicate (explained below): IATA airline designators are used to identify an airline for commercial purposes in reservations, timetables,
tickets Ticket or tickets may refer to: Slips of paper * Lottery ticket * Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start) * Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a tol ...
,
tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and pol ...
s, air waybills and in
telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
. A flight designator is the concatenation of the airline designator, xx(a), and the numeric
flight number In the aviation industry, a flight number or flight designator is a code for an airline service consisting of two-character airline designator and a 1 to 4 digit number. For example, "BA 98" is a British Airways service from Toronto-Pearson to ...
, n(n)(n)(n), plus an optional one-letter "operational suffix" (a). Therefore, the full format of a flight designator is xx(a)n(n)(n)(n)(a). After an airline is delisted, IATA can make the code available for reuse after six months and can issue "controlled duplicates". Controlled duplicates are issued to regional airlines whose destinations are not likely to overlap, so that the same code is shared by two airlines. The controlled duplicate is denoted here, and in IATA literature, with an asterisk (*). An example of this is the code "7Y", which refers to both
Mid Airlines Mid Airlines is a charter airline based in Khartoum, Sudan. It operates domestic passenger services. Its main base is Khartoum International Airport. History The airline was established in 2002 and started operations in May 2003. Destinations Mi ...
, a charter airline in Sudan, and Med Airways, a charter airline in
Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
(ceased 2015, but did actually fly to Sudan) IATA also issues an accounting or prefix code. This number is used on tickets as the first three characters of the ticket number. IATA airline designators are usually kept even if the airline changes name, so the code does not match the name anymore. For example, AY was given to Aero OY, now
Finnair Finnair ( fi, Finnair Oyj, sv, Finnair Abp) is the flag carrier and largest airline of Finland, with its headquarters in Vantaa on the grounds of Helsinki Airport, its hub. Finnair and its subsidiaries dominate both domestic and international ...
, and FI was given to Flugfélag Íslands, now Icelandair.


ICAO airline designator

The ICAO airline designator is a code assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to aircraft operating agencies, aeronautical authorities, and services related to international aviation, each of which is allocated both a ''three-letter designator'' and a ''telephony designator''. These codes are unique by airline, unlike the IATA airline designator codes (see section above). The designators are listed in ICAO Document 8585: ''Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services''. ICAO codes have been issued since 1947. The ICAO codes were originally based on a two-letter system and were identical to the airline codes used by IATA. After an airline joined IATA its existing ICAO two-letter code was taken over as IATA code. Because both organizations used the same code system, the current terms ICAO code and IATA code did not exist until the 1980s. They were commonly called two-letter airline designators. At that time it was impossible to find out whether an airline was an IATA member or not just by looking at its code. In the 1970s the abbreviation ''BA'' was the ICAO code and the IATA code of
British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...
, while non-IATA members like
Court Line Court Line was a 20th-century British tramp shipping company that was founded in 1905. In the 1960s it diversified into shipbuilding and charter aviation. Its merchant shipping interests were based in London. Its shipyards were at Appledore in ...
used their two-letter abbreviation as ICAO code only. In 1982 ICAO introduced the current three-letter system due to the increasing number of airlines. After a transitional period of five years, it became the official new ICAO standard system in November 1987 while IATA kept the older two-letter system that was introduced by ICAO in 1947. Certain combinations of letters are not allocated, to avoid confusion with other systems. Other designators, particularly those starting with Y and Z, are reserved for government organizations. The designator YYY is used for operators that do not have a code allocated. An example is: * Operator:
American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...
* Three-letter designator: AAL (the original ICAO-two-letter designator AA was officially used until 1987 and is also the IATA code of the airline) * Telephony designator: AMERICAN A timeline of the airline designators used by American Airlines:


Call signs (flight identification or flight ID)

Most airlines employ a
call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...
that is normally spoken during
airband Airband or aircraft band is the name for a group of frequencies in the VHF radio spectrum allocated to radio communication in civil aviation, sometimes also referred to as ''VHF'', or phonetically as ''"Victor"''. Different sections of the band ...
radio transmissions. As by ICAO Annex 10 chapter 5.2.1.7.2.1 a call sign shall be one of the following types: * Type A: the characters corresponding to the registration marking of the aircraft. * Type B: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the last four characters of the registration marking of the aircraft. * Type C: the telephony designator of the aircraft operating agency, followed by the flight identification. The one most widely used within commercial aviation is type C. The flight identification is very often the same as the flight number, though this is not always the case. In case of call sign confusion a different flight identification can be chosen, but the flight number will remain the same. Call sign confusion happens when two or more flights with similar flight numbers fly close to each other, e.g., KLM 645 and KLM 649 or Speedbird 446 and Speedbird 664. The flight number is published in an airline's public timetable and appears on the arrivals and departure screens in the airport terminals. In cases of emergency, the airline name and flight number, rather than the call sign, are normally mentioned by the main news media. Some call signs are less obviously associated with a particular airline than others. This might be for historic reasons ( South African Airways uses the callsign "Springbok", hearkening back to the airline's old livery which featured a
springbok The springbok (''Antidorcas marsupialis'') is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in south and southwest Africa. The sole member of the genus ''Antidorcas'', this bovid was first described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm ...
), or possibly to avoid confusion with a call sign used by an established airline. Companies' assigned names may change as a result of mergers, acquisitions, or change in company name or status;
British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...
uses BOAC's old callsign ("
Speedbird The Speedbird is the stylised emblem of a bird in flight designed in 1932 by Theyre Lee-Elliott as the corporate logo for Imperial Airways. It became a design classic and was used by the airline and its successors – British Overseas Airways C ...
"), as British Airways was formed by a merger of BOAC and
British European Airways British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974. BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom. The a ...
. Country names can also change over time and new call signs may be agreed in substitution for traditional ones. The country shown alongside an airline's call sign is that wherein most of its aircraft are believed to be registered, which may not always be the same as the country in which the firm is officially incorporated or registered. There are many other airlines in business whose
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
call signs are more obviously derived from the trading name. The callsign should ideally resemble the operator's name or function and not be confused with callsigns used by other operators. The callsign should be easily and phonetically pronounceable in at least English, the international language of aviation. For example,
Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global a ...
' callsign is "Airfrans"; 'frans' is the phonetic spelling of 'France'. In the previous years, alpha-numeric callsigns have been adopted by airlines (mostly in Europe) to minimise callsign confusion over the radio. These kind of callsigns may include a combination of: a digit and a letter, digit and two letters or two-digits and one letter. e.g. Airfrans 65 Kilo (AFR65K).


Accounting number or prefix code

The airline accounting code, or prefix code, is a 3-digit number, referenced by IATA and unique among all the airlines, used to identify the airline in various accounting activities such as ticketing. For instance, Lufthansa (LH/DLH) has been assigned 220 as accounting code, and all the flight tickets issued by that airline start with "220-". The IATA code search page references the accounting code for every airline having one.


See also

*
International Air Transport Association airport code An IATA airport code, also known as an IATA location identifier, IATA station code, or simply a location identifier, is a three-character alphanumeric geocode designating many airports and metropolitan areas around the world, defined by the I ...
*
International Civil Aviation Organization airport code The ICAO airport code or location indicator is a four-letter code designating aerodromes around the world. These codes, as defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization and published in ICAO Document 7910: ''Location Indicators'', a ...


Notes


References


External links


International Civil Aviation Organization
Official site
ICAO On-line Publications Purchasing
Official site
IATA's Airline and Airport Code Search
{{DEFAULTSORT:Airline Codes
Codes In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
Call signs International Air Transport Association Lists of abbreviations