Calling SkyWest Guys...
 

Enroute on MSP center yesterday and heard a SkyWest aircraft call up as 67A, what's up with that? I use to work ramp for OO a while back and never saw anything like this. Just curious. Thanks!

I don't work for skywest, but many times I hear skywest flights on the freq. with alphanumeric callsigns. At mesaba the only time we'll have a 3XXX-A flight number is when another aircraft is airborne using the same 3XXX callsign. (e.g. flight 3630 may operate RAP-MSP-DFW. If RAP-MSP is running late and MSP-DFW gets off to DFW before the RAP inbound gets to MSP, it will be MES3630A as far as ATC is concerned.)

I would imagine at skywest...operating hundreds of flights a day for both DL and UA in the same region (out west) this probably occurs on a daily basis.

I will see this on my schedule...

3456 PHL-CLT
3456 CLT-PHL

The flight from CLT-PHL will be filed with ATC as 56A, but as far as rampers and pax know it is the same flight number both ways.

ASA does the same thing. We'll use the same flight number, let's say 4999 BTR to ATL, then 4999 ATL to MYR. Then the inbound leg gets delayed so that both would be in the air at the same time. The outbound leg gets changed to ASQ 99A for ATC purposes only. To everyone else it's still 4999.

Out of SLC there are too many Skywest flights with similar sounding flight numbers so about 1/2 of them are given alpha-numeric call signs.

I had a good one the other night, we were Acey 2A.

Makes sense.... I just never noticed it before I guess. Thanks for all the replies!

Army used to do a similar thing over here in Europe, but have since stopped. I think it was just an aid to help our Theater Flight Operations office keep track of which leg the flight was on. For example, a flight in one day from Stuttgart to Naples would be Clue32A then on to Venice as Clue32B and back to Stuttgart as Clue32C.

This confused the occasional pilot and made the Serbians mad as they would approve, say, a JGO48 to overfly their country but a JGO48A would show up. Diverting from overhead Bosnia when you are 45 minutes from landing in Kosovo out over the Adriatic to avoid an entire country sure puts a damper on your day.

It's common in Europe. Lufthansa uses it.

It's common in the US, and has been used for many decades. Most typically, it was used when Clipper123 and Speedbird123 showed up on frequency at the same time. Both call signs would be amended then. The different legs of the same flight has been mentioned. I like the random and preemptive numeric/alpha call signs used in SLC.