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Old 03-11-2009 | 05:23 AM
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Default ATC Callsigns

What does it mean if a commercial flight has a letter at the end of its flight number? I heard something to the effect of NWA708G/H. Just curious!?!
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Old 03-11-2009 | 08:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Ray Blaszak
What does it mean if a commercial flight has a letter at the end of its flight number? I heard something to the effect of NWA708G/H. Just curious!?!
means there is more than one of the same flight number in the air or in the ATC system.
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Old 03-15-2009 | 08:35 AM
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Originally Posted by freightdog
means there is more than one of the same flight number in the air or in the ATC system.
Correct. This happens when a flight number is coded through multiple cities...

Example:

Flight 3955 PHX-SLC-BZM.

For schedule and ticket sales purposes it is one flight. But operationally it would be common for the two legs to be flown by different airplanes, so it would be possible (even common) for the PHX-SLC flight to arrive late, after the SLC-BZM flight had already departed. You would then have two flight in the SLC center or terminal area with the same call sign. For this reason the flight leaving the hub (SLC-BZM) is assigned a callsign like 55X or 55Y.
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Old 03-15-2009 | 01:36 PM
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It can be similar call signs, also.

I regularly changed call signs of aircraft when I had, for example, TWA 123 and PanAm 123. I'd change the call sign, and then inform each aircraft what their new call sign was, typically PanAm 123Alpha and TWA 123Zulu.
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