ua900 wrote:

Condor using DE likely is a reference to DEutschland aka Germany

skytony wrote:

When I worked for Leisure Air in the early 1990s. I remembered our code to be L8 which was fitting because of our massive delays with the DC-10 fleet.

SASViking wrote:

Sterling Airways had NB which stood for Nordisk Bustrafik (Nordic bustraffic/transport).
When the travel agency Tjæreborg started in 1950, they operated bus tours from Denmark to Spain under the name "Nordisk Bustrafik", when Sterling Airways was created in 1962 by the same travel agency, they took NB as a tribute to their "heritage"

raylee67 wrote:

VTCIE wrote:

Of course we have the famous AK (AirAsia), CX, CZ, EK, EY, MH, PR, QF, SQ, SV, TG, etc. where the first letter of the code matches the first letter of the airline, but the second letter is very random. Then there is the reverse case; the second letter makes sense but not the first:

Also KE, not sure why Korean Air did not choose KA, as KA was obviously available when Korean was founded, although the name of the airline was Korean National Airline, not Korean Air, at that time.

The current TG is a result of merger between Thai Airways International (TG) and Thai Airways (TH) back in the 1980s. TG was established to fly international and TH was the domestic airline.

When TG was established, it was probably used for the International one because TH was already used for the domestic airline, so they picked the alphabet before H. When the two merged, TG was retained, probably because it has more recognition globally.

SeoulIncheon wrote:

So when Korean Air chose its IATA code it would have been Korean Air Lines. Probably the fact that Cathay Dragon(KA) joined IATA (1987) before Korean Air mattered...

FlyCaledonian wrote:

KT, for British Airtours (originally formed as BEA Airtours and rebranded as Caledonian Airways when BA took over BCal) has always been a complete mystery to me. As an interesting aside the British Airtours ICAO code was BKT, but this was changed to CKT when rebranded as Caledonian Airways.

PB26 wrote:

PPVLC wrote:

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PB26 wrote:

VARIG's RG came from Rio Grande do Sul, the company birthstate

Yes, Viacao Aerea Riograndense gave us RG -from the RS state. Cruzeiro was SC because of its original name Servicos Aereos Cruzeiro do Sul.

Cruzeiro's SC may came from above, Southern Cross (the english translation for Cruzeiro do Sul) or Syndicato Condor, the SC's original name when the company was set up.

CarlosSi wrote:

How about we start a company called “Golden Airways” and have the code be “AU”?

FlyCaledonian wrote:

MT, used by the late Thomas Cook Airlines, came from My Travel (The former Airtours International).

moa999 wrote:

Virgin Blue (Australia) used DJ from its inception - reportedly Disc Jockey as a homage to Branson's music roots.

When it rebranded to Virgin Australia it took the VA code.

openskies88 wrote:

moa999 wrote:

Virgin Blue (Australia) used DJ from its inception - reportedly Disc Jockey as a homage to Branson's music roots.

When it rebranded to Virgin Australia it took the VA code.

Always found it odd that Virgin Atlantic opted for VS over VA, given VA was available long before Virgin Blue rebranded to Virgin Australia.

FlyCaledonian wrote:

BA, for British Airways, is interesting because it was originally allocated to BOAC and I guess BO could equally have been requested. The fact that BOAC took BA meant that when British Airways was formed they had the perfect IATA code!

VTCIE wrote:

One code that has never ceased to baffle me belongs to the biggest airline failure of the year. How on Earth did Jet Airways get 9W? If codes are visualised as a grid/matrix, 9W comes at the very end of the matrix of codes of the 1A type (digit followed by letter), and I think that codes near the beginning of the matrix (beginning with A) are much more desirable than those at the end.

SASViking wrote:

SRQKEF wrote:

SmartLynx, previously LatCharter, is 6Y = sexy.

Same goes for Alsie Express which have 6I

You are missing the big one. IndiGo chose the 6E code precisely because it sounds like ‘sexy’. When AirAsia India launched, there was an article in the Times of India that had a paragraph on the IATA codes of some Indian airlines.

Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia has scored a high five when it comes to getting an airline code. The JV, AirAsia India Pvt. Ltd. (AAIPL), has got ‘I5’ as its airline code and becomes the only Indian carrier to have a smart code apart from IndiGo which has ‘6E’—to rhyme with ‘sexy’—as its code.
GoAir’s G8 is closer to great, if stretched a bit. All other Indian airlines have either abbreviations of their names or random codes. Air India has AI code. Jet Airways, JetKonnect and SpiceJet have 9W, S2 and SG as their rather unimaginative codes.
AAIPL CEO Mittu Chandilya had told TOI earlier this month that he wanted a number and an alphabet in the airline’s code. Clearly, he came up with a smart one with I5.

Of course, from India we also have Vistara, which is the first non-British airline to have the ‘UK’ code.

Among non-Indian airlines, some interesting codes that have no explanation that I know of are as follows (plenty of Chinese airlines like GS, HO, JD, MF and PN):

• AT: Royal Air Maroc
• BR: EVA Air (no relation whatsoever to British Caledonian)
• DD: Nok Air
• DY: Norwegian Air Shuttle (every code in the Norwegian group begins with D: DY, D8, DI, DN)
• FD: Thai AirAsia
• FR: Ryanair
• FV: Rossiya (its ICAO code, SDM, is equally random)
• GK: Jetstar Japan (and formerly Laker Airways)
• GS: Tianjin Airlines
• HO: Juneyao Airlines
• HV: Transavia
• JD: Capital Airlines (and formerly Japan Air System)
• JT: Lion Air
• KA: Cathay Dragon (perhaps inspired by Kai Tak?)
• LY: El Al Israel Airlines
• MF: Xiamen Air
• MI: SilkAir
• MT: Thomas Cook Airlines (R.I.P.)
• NX: Air Macau
• OU: Croatia Airlines (they could have chosen HR, following Austrian’s lead in choosing OS)
• OZ: Asiana Airlines (something Qantas might have utilised)
• PG: Bangkok Airways
• PN: West Air
• RB: Syrian Air
• UB: Myanmar National Airlines
• UL: SriLankan Airlines
• UX: Air Europa (a code better associated with interface design)
• WB: RwandAir
  
• WY: Oman Air (self-explanatory: WHY?!)

Of course we have the famous AK (AirAsia), CX, CZ, EK, EY, MH, PR, QF, SQ, SV, TG, etc. where the first letter of the code matches the first letter of the airline, but the second letter is very random. Then there is the reverse case; the second letter makes sense but not the first:

.

• DT: TAAG Angola Airlines
• TM: LAM Mozambique Airlines
• KM: Air Malta
• YM: Montenegro Airlines
• OM: MIAT Mongolian Airlines

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the first two are both Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa.

SASViking wrote:

Sterling Airways had NB which stood for Nordisk Bustrafik (Nordic bustraffic/transport).
When the travel agency Tjæreborg started in 1950, they operated bus tours from Denmark to Spain under the name "Nordisk Bustrafik", when Sterling Airways was created in 1962 by the same travel agency, they took NB as a tribute to their "heritage"

Today, Tjæreborg (spelled as Tjäreborg) is present only in Finland, which is a decidedly non-Scandinavian country. A strange case of a Scandinavian name being used in a non-Scandinavian country. Fortunately Tjäreborg (along with Spies in Denmark, and Ving in Norway and Sweden, as well as Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia) were unaffected by the collapse of the Thomas Cook Group.

That said, DK is an extremely appropriate code for Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, as it is based in Denmark. Similarly DE for Condor (Germany), ID for Batik Air (Indonesia) and ZH for Shenzhen Airlines (not only because of ShenZHen, but also because the Chinese name for China, zhongguo, begins with ZH). Similarly for all those British airlines that had the UK code before Vistara came along.

FSDan wrote:

I assume all the airlines with numbered codes were just picking up available pairs of characters... B6, 3M, G4, Y4, 3U, etc.

Good examples of letter–number combinations that make absolutely no sense at all:

• Latin America: Y4 (Volaris), 4O (Interjet) and H2 (Sky Airline). At the other end of the spectrum is JA (JetSmart). Also BW (Caribbean Airlines), which inherits its code from BWIA West Indies Airways.
• Europe: U2 (easyJet), X3 (TUI fly Deutschland), 0B (Blue Air; the only code I know of that begins with a zero), 9U (Air Moldova; the same strange logic as neighbour Jet Airways).
• Middle East and Africa: G9 (Air Arabia), 6H (Israir Airlines), 8Q (Onur Air), 8U (Afriqiyah Airways).
• Eastern Asia: D7 (AirAsia X, especially given that Thai and Indonesian AirAsia X have XJ and XT, respectively); as well as 5J (Cebu Pacific Air) and Z2 (Philippines AirAsia, though this comes from Zest Airways).

eta unknown wrote:

openskies88 wrote:

moa999 wrote:

Virgin Blue (Australia) used DJ from its inception - reportedly Disc Jockey as a homage to Branson's music roots.

When it rebranded to Virgin Australia it took the VA code.

Always found it odd that Virgin Atlantic opted for VS over VA, given VA was available long before Virgin Blue rebranded to Virgin Australia.

VA was in use until 1997 with Viasa. Virgin Atlantic was up and running for years by then, so no point in changing once VA became available.

eielef wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

How about we start a company called “Golden Airways” and have the code be “AU”?

That would be funny. Austral (that depends of Aerolineas Argentinas) has the code AU. Aerolíneas has the code AR but the call sign ARGENTINA. Considering that Argentina, the name comes from Latin: Argentum, that means Silver (as the name of the country comes from the Silver River), Aerolíneas could well be AG, following the old Mendeleev table...

eielef wrote:

Argentinean codes are interesting:
AR for Aerolíneas Argentinas (I believe it comes from ARGENTINA which is the call sign from the airline)
AU from Austral Líneas Aéreas
4M for LATAM Argentina (sure, nothing else was left. BUT the airline legally was founded as Aerodosmil which is still worse).
FO for Flybondi (people sometimes use F0 (F-Zero). Not sure why.
DN for Norwegian Argentina (why D is a mistery)
WJ for Jetsmart Argentina (why W also a mistery).
FQ for Flyest (very small airline)
5U for LADE (Líneas Aéreas del Estado). Military airline

Past airlines should include:
OY for Andes Líneas Aéreas (ceased operations nov/19), airline sold tickets as ANxxx
A0 (A Zero) UGLIEST code, for Avianca Argentina (ceased operations jun/19).
8R for Sol Líneas Aéreas
MJ for LAPA Líneas Aéreas
A4 for Southern Winds
D7 for Dinar Líneas Aéreas

Also, for the flight numbering there is a special rule:
OY and 5U starts with 0, but flights are sold without that digit: e.g. OY842 AEP-JUJ, 5U451 USH-RGL-CRD. If more than 0500, OY. If less, 5U
AR starts with 1 e.g. AR1300 EZE-JFK
AU with 2 e.g. AU2800 ROS-SLA
WJ starts with 3, e.g. WJ3500 EPA-TUC. In the past, LAPA
4M used to start with 4, also did Southern Winds (Southern Winds). Now, unused
FO starts with 5, e.g. FO5050 EPA-MDZ. In the past, SOL Líneas Aéreas
DN starts with 6, e.g. DN6000 AEP-BRC. In the past, Dinar
A0 (past) and 4M starts with 7 . E.g. 4M7900 EZE-LIM. If less than 7500, then Avianca Argentina) (e.g. A07105 RCQ-ROS-AEP)
FQ starts with 8, e.g. FQ8651 NCJ-SFN-AEP
Flights starting with 9 are for ferry, e.g. 4M9983 ferry SCL-EZE, or A09186 MDQ-AEP. But this is not very common. AR and AU use the 0 for ferries, e.g. AR1040 or AU2072.

VTCIE wrote:

No flight ever uses the AU code. All Austral flights use the AR code, making them indistinguishable from Aerolíneas flights. Meanwhile AG is used by Aruba Airlines. On the other hand, Silver Airways (best known for flying from Florida to the Caribbean, I think) has 3M—an American industrial behemoth—as its code.

Fittingly for an airline named after an element, the now-defunct Cobalt Air of Cyprus had CO, the old code of Continental Airlines.


I have never seen the AU code used anywhere. All Austral flights use the AR code. Meanwhile LATAM Argentina currently has only one flight using the 4M code: 4M7820/7821 from EZE to MIA and back. All other flights use the LA code. The ICAO code, DSM, is explained by Aerodosmil, the former name of the airline, as you have said.

Meanwhile LATAM Colombia (formerly known as AIRES) used the 4C code in the past.