Which aircraft types have you traveled by?
Have you ever noticed that aircraft names are not just a combination of letters and
numbers randomly assigned to the aircraft?
Actually, there is a fine-tuned system behind it.
Every manufacturer has a pretty rigid code for its aircraft names.
Want to know about it?
Well, stay tuned to the video And watch the video till the end.
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And in today's video, we are going to “Explained: What The Codes Mean Behind Airbus And Boeing
Plane Names.”
So without any further ado, Let's begin.
There is a reason for everything in the aviation industry.
From "pilot slang" to meal assignments for flight crew, practically everything must fit
into a standardized code.
Although it may seem like the letters and numbers assigned to aircraft are completely
arbitrary, there is actually a fine-tuned system behind the naming.
Airbus, for example, has a pretty rigid code by which they name their planes.
The very first Airbus ever made was the A300.
In this case, the “A” stood for Airbus, and 300 was the original capacity.
After some time, Airbus realized that the plane would be better with only 260 passengers
(instead of 300).
However, rather than rename the plane the A260, they decided to go with A300B.
Without getting an excessive amount into the historical past of Boeing’s naming conference,
it must be famous that Boeing assigned the quantity 700 to jet engines.
The planemaker’s first business jetliner was once to be named the “Boeing 700”.
Then again, the selling crew at Boeing idea that including a “7” to the top simply
sounded better- which is how the “Boeing 707” got here into the sector.
One exception to this that’s value bringing up is the Boeing 720- which was once a shorter
variant of the 707 used for working shorter routes and commencing from shorter runways.
Because the 707, Boeing’s naming conference for business jets has held company with its
7X7 sample.
Indicating the plane kind, those jets have at all times had an extra set of letters and
numbers added.
Pilots and flight attendants often communicate with each other using the radio tannoy, meaning
passengers can hear what they are saying.
The cabin crew will use code words as a way to discretely get their message across.
And now the meaning behind one of these words has been revealed and passengers might be
horrified to learn the truth.
In a Reddit thread, anyone who worked for airlines was asked to reveal secrets passengers
don’t know.
He revealed the meaning behind the code “HR” and said: “A lot of freight gets shipped
on commercial flights.
“One of these items was always called HR on the radios.
HR was an abbreviation for 'Human Remains’.
Some people die far away from where they want to get buried.
They're packed in wood-framed boxes, so you would never know what was inside except by
the strange shape of them.”
Czech Airlines have an IATA code of OK.
Going back to 1927, the International Telecommunications Union assigned radio call signs to each country.
Czechoslovakia was assigned the OK prefix and this is seen today as the code for Czech
Airlines.
It is also the country code for the aircraft registered in that country, so now you know.
Finnair also has an unusual one, with their flight numbers preceded by the code AY.
This stands for Aero Yhtiö, with “yhtiö” meaning “company” in Finnish.
Russia’s Aeroflot is another which seems to have no meaning, but in reality, it is
much simpler than Finnair.
SU is Aeroflot’s code, which stands for the Soviet Union.
The numbers and letters you see on your boarding pass are no random combination.
Every airline uses a specific system to ascribe letters and numbers to every flight.
The letter component of the flight number is fairly straightforward: They represent
the carrier.
For example, Delta uses DL, American Airlines is AA, and United is UA.
The system gets more complicated with the numbers.
Although each airline has its own rules about how to assign numbers, no airline can use
more than five digits for the flights.
Every single flight number must be from 1 to 9999.
Throughout the industry, as Mental Floss notes, even flight numbers are typically assigned
to north and eastbound flights while south and westbound flights end in odd numbers.
(There are some exceptions to the rule.)
Airlines typically assign the return flight number as one digit higher than the outbound
flight.
For example, JetBlue has a flight from JFK to LAX that's JBU523.
When it returns to JFK, the flight number is JBU524.
“A lot of the ways we say things to be meaningful to other pilots is kind of monkey-see, monkey-do,”
says Ferdi Mack, senior manager at the Pilot Information Center, of picking up lingo on
the job.
“Part of your challenge is to get it and understand it.”
And flight crews often use the same pilot slang in slightly different ways.
So if you’ve ever wondered what your flight crew is talking about, you can save yourself
years of aviation training with this rundown of pilot jargon.
For all Boeing business households, a hyphen follows the style.
Maximum continuously, up till fresh instances, 3 digits were added.
Those 3 numbers constitute the sequence throughout the style.
There are two primary differentiators for sequence numbers: Plane measurement and plane
technology.
The 737 circle of relatives is probably the most attention-grabbing case for designation
permutations as each and every technology has had a number of the sequence.
The 737 circles of relatives of the plane started with the -100 however has long gone
the entire method as much as the -900.
When taking a look at the maximum explicit of style numbers, apparently that Boeing has
assigned the very remaining two of the 3 digits as identifiers for the unique buyer of the
plane.
As an example, 737-800s constructed for Delta is designated the 737-832.
Are you able to bet what airline operates a Boeing 737-924?
It looks as if Boeing determined to drop those remaining distinctions for more modern jets
as they don’t appear to seem for the 787 and 737 MAX planes.
However whilst the most recent 747s are known as 747-8s, their “complete names” do seem
to have 3 digits after the hyphen.
Thus, the Boeing plane purpose-built for Korean Air all result in B5.
Their 737-900s are “737-9B5” whilst their 747-8 passenger jets are “747-8B5” (Lufthansa
operates the 747-830).
When Airbus decides to tweak a plane just a bit, they will stick to numbers close by.
For example, the shorter variants of the A320, A318, and A319.
But these four letters and numbers are only part of the aircraft’s name.
A full, proper Airbus name would be, for example, the Airbus A320-231.
This plane belongs to the A320 family, and the last three digits specify the plane even
more.
The first digit means that it was part of the Airbus A320-200 series, the second version
of this plane.
The last digits correspond to the type of engine used.
For those who are curious: Boeing’s system of naming airplanes is a bit more complicated.
It’s tricky to give regulations and conventions when the planemakers themselves damage the
sample from time to time.
The A320 circle of relatives is any other instance of this.
Whilst Boeing’s narrowbody 737 circles of relatives throughout its more than one generation
have its suffixes that fluctuate consistent with measurement, Airbus’ A320 circle of
relatives strikes up and down in measurement with the remaining two digits.
Thus, the Airbus A318 is the smallest member of the A320 circle of relatives.
Shifting up is the A319, then the A320, and in spite of everything, the A321 is the longest
model.
All A318 and A319s had been -100s.
In the meantime, the A320 and A321 jets had every -100 and -200 variants.
The -100s had to decrease MTOWs than their -200 opposite numbers, which have been heavier
and had structural adjustments to maintain will increase in gasoline capability.
Airbus has modernized each of the A320 and A330 households with “neo” versions- with
the 3 letters status for “new engine choice.”
Consequently, the older technology was known as ceos, or “present engine choices.”
Those that need to be extra technical would possibly merely seek advice from the older
ceo variants with their three-digit suffixes (-100 or -200).
The neo designation will get additionally sophisticated because the A320neo circle of
relatives makes use of a three-digit suffix adopted by means of an “N.” Heading over
to Japan, ANA has the code NH.
This one stands for Nippon Helicopters, which is how the airline started out in 1952.
It is a nice throwback to history, and the N lives on as ANA stands for All Nippon Airways.
Like Aeroflot, both Aer Lingus and Romania’s Tarom have a code that represents the country
name.
Aer Lingus have EI which stands for Éire, the Irish word for Ireland.
Tarom has RO which presumably stands for Romania.
A fun one is India’s IndiGo which has 6E as theirs, and their inflight magazine is
called “Hello 6E”.
Saying 6E out loud sounds a bit like “sexy” (especially if you’re from New Zealand!)
so that’s pretty cool.
Like Airbus, Boeing aircraft names are longer than three digits and they look like 7X7-ABC
(e.g. Boeing 747-400) where ABC is any three-digit number.
This number stands for Boeing’s Customer Code.
For instance, a 747-121 would be a 747-100 sold to Pan Am.
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