ANITIX87 From United States of America, joined Mar 2005, 3233 posts, RR: 14 Reply 2, posted (7 years 1 month 2 hours ago) and read 1841 times:
Quoting ArmitageShanks (Reply 1): As far as I know its just a number the aircraft manufacturer gives each airline so it can identify that airlines installed features.
That makes sense, but then I find it odd that several airlines can have the same endings. (Like US and NW in the example I gave above). Unless they just have identical aircraft, and it makes it easier for the companies.
TIS
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Corey07850 From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 2519 posts, RR: 5 Reply 3, posted (7 years 1 month 2 hours ago) and read 1838 times:
In Boeing Aircraft the the last two numbers, in your example the "22" represents the customer code. All airlines have their unique customer code applied by Boeing.
In Airbus aircraft the 2 letter codes aren't airline specific, but rather denote the type of engines/options the aircraft have.
CitationJet From United States of America, joined Mar 2003, 2230 posts, RR: 3 Reply 4, posted (7 years 4 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 1784 times:
Do a search on "customer code" in the civil, civil archived, and tech ops forums. You will find the answers.
Hals From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 44 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (7 years 4 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 1683 times:
IIRC, Boeing customer codes are allocated when the aircraft is ordered. If then a particular aircraft is not taken up by the airline or leasing company it still carries the customer code for that airline or leasing company anyway.
Eg: VS 747-443's, these were initially ordered by Alitalia (code 43) but not taken up. VS then leased the aircraft.
This used to confuse the hell out of me when I first became interested in airliners. Hope it helps, if I am wrong on any of the above points, please correct me.
Starlionblue From Hong Kong, joined Feb 2004, 15870 posts, RR: 66 Reply 6, posted (7 years 4 weeks 3 hours ago) and read 1638 times:
Quoting Hals (Reply 5): This used to confuse the hell out of me when I first became interested in airliners. Hope it helps, if I am wrong on any of the above points, please correct me.
Confused me too, especially when I talked to an alleged "expert" who said the last two numbers had to do with the airfoil section being slightly different and I tried to corroborate that story for a while. It always bugs me when people don't know, but don't want to say they don't know. If you don't know, or you're guessing, just say so!
ANITIX87 From United States of America, joined Mar 2005, 3233 posts, RR: 14 Reply 7, posted (7 years 3 weeks 6 days 22 hours ago) and read 1586 times:
Great website. Lots of useful information. One other quick question about the Boeing codes.
What about an airline like Swissair, which doesn't exist anymore. Will their customer code get re-assigned or is it retired forever? Also, if LX orders any Boeing aircraft (which I doubt they'll ever do) would they adopt the old SR code?
TIS
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Bohica From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 2407 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (7 years 3 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago) and read 1555 times:
Quoting ANITIX87 (Reply 7): One other quick question about the Boeing codes.
What about an airline like Swissair, which doesn't exist anymore. Will their customer code get re-assigned or is it retired forever?
They are retired for the most part. If you look at the boeing codes, you will see codes for Braniff, PanAm, Western, Eastern, Swissair, Sabena, etc. There are several cases where more than one airline had the same code, usually due to name changes. It is possible that if Swiss buys a Boeing, they might be assigned Swissair's code.
Irish251 From Ireland, joined Nov 2004, 925 posts, RR: 4 Reply 9, posted (7 years 3 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 1498 times:
I think it very unlikely that Boeing would re-use the code of a now defunct carrier. Note that even with a company such as Tarom, their 707s were series -3K1Cs, while when they bought 737-700s they were 737-78Js - a new customer code. I think it's fair to say that when Boeing first introduced this system with the 707 and 720, they could not have foreseen the huge number of customers they would have in the future, and also how many of the then major carriers would "bite the dust" within a decade or two!
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