Do Airbus pilots have nicknames for their aircraft?

convair880mfan · Sat Aug 21, 2021 6:25 pm

A retired Boeing pilot told me that there were nicknames for some of the planes he flew as a military and commercial pilot. He said the KC-135 was called GLOB which stood for Ground Loving Old B and that the 737-200 was called FLUF which stood for Funny Little Ugly F. I don't know if other Boeing or McDonnell Douglas aircraft had nicknames or the L-1011.

Someone who flew the Lockheed C5 for MAC told me that loadmasters had a nickname for it but I can't remember what he told me.

How about Airbus and other aircraft. Do you have nickname for those?

Snuffaluffagus · Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:41 am

A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

GalaxyFlyer · Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:28 am

Snuffaluffagus wrote:
A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

It’s French, hence FiFi.

Aaron747 · Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:48 am

GalaxyFlyer wrote:
Snuffaluffagus wrote:
A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

It’s French, hence FiFi.

With final assembly in Germany I'd think something in Deutsche would be a more fitting nickname. Fifi could apply to A330, 350 etc.

GalaxyFlyer · Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:57 pm

Design is in Toulouse, everyone thinks of the Airbus as French, HQ is in France.

DFW17L · Sun Aug 22, 2021 6:29 pm

A319, little Wiener Schnitzel.

LH707330 · Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:42 am

The most common ones I hear are "Atari" and "Trash panda."

This site has a whole list of them: http://www.b737.org.uk/aircraftnicknames.htm

dennypayne · Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:37 am

GalaxyFlyer wrote:
Snuffaluffagus wrote:
A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

It’s French, hence FiFi.

Perhaps also because of the “barking dog” noise common on them?

FlyHossD · Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:53 pm

Snuffaluffagus wrote:
A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

I’ve heard UAL pilots refer to the A319 as the short bus and the 777 as Bigfoot.

bradyj23 · Mon Aug 23, 2021 4:39 pm

A220 is the Canabus.

N1120A · Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:20 pm

The Fifi nickname comes from United. The reason is because the plane is French (for nickname purposes).

B6JFKH81 · Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:01 pm

Aaron747 wrote:
GalaxyFlyer wrote:
Snuffaluffagus wrote:
A common nick name for the A320, and maybe other A3xx, is Fifi. Why? I have no clue, but that's what a few of us called it. The 737 is known as the guppy at UAL.

It’s French, hence FiFi.

With final assembly in Germany I'd think something in Deutsche would be a more fitting nickname. Fifi could apply to A330, 350 etc.

Not sure how things are now, but every A320 in my airline's fleet had final assembly in TLS. Our A321s come from XFW and BFM. Chances are when the nickname came about, the aircraft was being assembled in TLS.

Aaron747 · Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:29 pm

B6JFKH81 wrote:
Aaron747 wrote:
GalaxyFlyer wrote:

It’s French, hence FiFi.

With final assembly in Germany I'd think something in Deutsche would be a more fitting nickname. Fifi could apply to A330, 350 etc.

Not sure how things are now, but every A320 in my airline's fleet had final assembly in TLS. Our A321s come from XFW and BFM. Chances are when the nickname came about, the aircraft was being assembled in TLS.

That’d be my guess too. Production moved from TLS to XFW in the mid-2000s IIRC.

CarlosSi · Tue Aug 24, 2021 3:17 pm

Apparently DHL/Atlas call their 767-200s “tuna can”. Hah! That’s funny. Only found out through the Atlas 4951 voice transcripts.

CarlosSi · Thu Aug 26, 2021 9:33 pm

Personally I call the a220s whales (sometimes) due to the howl as it passes by (onboard as well), and called MD80s just "dogs" for short towards its end. I would only really call it such when talking about it in context as few would really know what plane one could be referring to without the "mad".

FlyingJhawk · Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:36 pm

I've heard ATC reference the A220 as " the baby bus"

CarlosSi · Wed Sep 08, 2021 8:11 pm

FlyingJhawk wrote:
I've heard ATC reference the A220 as " the baby bus"

Isn’t that the a318

?

Works too for it, although the a220-300 is certainly not really that small anymore.

zeke · Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:13 pm

GalaxyFlyer wrote:
Design is in Toulouse, everyone thinks of the Airbus as French, HQ is in France.

Nope, not France

Headquarters
Airbus Group SE
PO Box 32008
2303 DA Leiden The Netherlands

https://www.airbus.com/contact-us.html

That would be like saying Boeing HQ is in WA.