Southwest designator code?

Question

wiki said that british air's designator code is speedbird. I asked what southwest was and like 10 ppl said SWA. WTF, then why isn't british air BA?

Answer 1

Speed-bird is British Airways 's "call sign".  BAW is the ICAO designator code.  BA is the IATA desginator code.  The call sign is just a nickname, sometimes to differentiate similar named airlines like America West used to use Cactus to avoid confusing it with American airlines, Air China uses Dynasty, with China Southern and China Eastern.

The tower only uses the call sign to talk to that airline.  To avoid further confusion, they won't tell another plane to "Hold for Speed-bird"  They say "Hold for British Airways", otherwise someone who doesn't know they are the same will be looking for Speed-bird airlines.

Southwest IATA code is WN

ICAO code SWA

Call sign is Southwest

A lot of airlines call sign are just the airlines name like Southwest.  They have no nickname, although since sometimes there are so many SWA planes on the ground at the same time, I've heard the tower call them "Corn Dog", "Blue Top" and  "Orca"  

It's confusing at first when taxiing around a busy airport and you're trying to monitor the radio, listening to what the other planes are doing and the tower's is using unfamiliar callsigns like Shamrock, Red Rock, Brickyard, Long Haul etc.

Answer 2

Just a few more radio call tidbits for you:  The Airtran "Citrus" name replaced Value Jet, "Critter" after a Critter DC-9 (VJA529) ended up in the Everglades.

Quite a few years ago, UPS (callsign UPS) decided to replace the radio call "UPS" with "Browntail."  You can guess how well that went over - half the pilots wouldn't even respond to ATC if we called them "Browntail."  UPS changed back to "UPS" pretty quickly.

If you'd like to see all the current callsigns go here:

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/a...

Answer 3

southwest

Answer 4

CALLSIGN=Southwest.ICAO=SWA.IATA=WN.

Answer 5

Captain Airtran is correct and Wikipedia is correct. On the departure screen you will see flight BA123 but Air Traffic Control will call him Speedbird 123. It's just a nickname. Something to do with the logo they had many years ago on their tail.