ATC callsign

[Victoroos 205]

Hi all,

I have a small question.

Now,w hen I fly, I always use the passenger callsign for the flight. but it enver contains any letters, but when I listen to my flight with real atc, it does.

 

Is there a way to find those callsigns meant for this flight?

 

vkr

victor

[mSparks 2,087]

There's three types of callsigns -> it depends

There's some more detail here

And in the app ground school.

Happy flying

[Westy2810 6]

Hi Victor,

It sounds like you may be talking about flight numbers (i.e. that displayed on tickets, boarding passes, departure boards etc) and radio callsigns (used by ATC). There's a very good explanation here (https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/clearing-up-call-sign-confusion/) but the short answer is that while flight numbers and callsigns can often be the same, it's increasingly common for flights to be allocated alpha-numeric callsigns (containing numbers and letters) that are different to the flight number - this is a safety measure to reduce the risk of potential confusion between aircrews and ATC for similar-sounding flight numbers, particularly for those operating at busy airports or in congested airspace (you don't want the crew of Ryanair 123 responding to ATC instructions for Ryanair 132, for example). In many of these cases, the callsign will be completely different to the flight number - the flight number for today's Alitalia flight from Rome to Heathrow is 'AZ204', but the radio callsign is 'Alitalia 97U'.

In terms of finding out the callsign for a particular flight, Flight Radar 24 or Flight Aware are good places to start...

Cheers,

Craig