Originally Posted by Lambourne

There is a very good reason the 747-400 was referred to as he "400". When we had both the rope start 747-200 and the 747-400 the equipment designator in unimatic was "747" for the rope start and "400" for the 747-400. If you wanted to bid one of the airplanes you had to put either "400" or "747" typed manually into the green screen. Same for looking at pairings in unimatic. Green screen required manual entries and thus a pilot was a "400" person to identify which equipment they were flying. Just like we called the 757/767 "767" because it came on the property first and that was the identifier in unimatic for bidding and looking at pairings.

It was not some great cosnpiracy to evoke superiority. It was just what the programmers used to identify the different fleets and seats.