Why can't we choose our own call sign?

Question

After listening to this funny exchange Kennedy ATC audio on youtube, about how ATC didn't knew Norwegian Airlines callsign was "RedNose", it occurred to me, why not have the option so that every aircraft can use a simple naming structure of just 2 words. Some times I find it painful to listen so many long call signs specially in congested areas.

This is my suggestion:

• You would go to the ICAO website to pick the 2 word combination you want tied to your tail number.(the system will tell you if your combination is available/not taken)
• ICAO would create a list of approved English words from which one could pick the desired 2 words combination.(the list could be updated annually by ICAO)
• Those words would be picked by ICAO based on criterias like simplicity, popular/global recognition, not conflicting(ie words like "airplane", "airspeed", "altitude" shouldn't be allowed), etc.
• Airlines could also use this by suffixing one word after their company name(ie. AmericanHappiness, UnitedDreamer, DeltaJupiter, DeltaHumble, etc)
• Yes, there are enough English words so that we only have to use 2 words combination for the total aircraft population(For the current system the English alphabet only has 26 letters and 9 numbers in a combination of 6 positions for the tail naming. In contrast, the number of usable words for the proposed system could be up ti 100k with 2 positions)
• This would not be a requirement, only a option available to every aircraft owner if they choose to, they could still use their tail number call sign if they want.

I mean seriously guys, don't tell me you want to be called NovemberFourTwoSixAlphaCharlie(N426AC) when instead you could be called:

FreedomLover
SweetMango
BigLion
WhiteIndian
CuteFace

I think this would be easier to remember, simpler, faster/shorter readbacks, and more distinguishable.

PS: I'm not proposing to change the tail number naming structure, just the call sign, the same way comercial airlines can have a different call sign than the tail number.

Answer 1

Let's clear a few things up. Scheduled flights generally use the airline prefix followed by the flight number as their callsign. So the callsign of United Airlines flight number 345 will be "United three four five".

Many of the airline prefixes are just the shortened form of the airline name - "United" for United Airlines, "Southwest" for Southwest Airlines etc. Some are more obscure (but well-known to pilots and ATC) - "Rednose" for Norwegian, "Speedbird" for British Airways. There are usually historical reasons for the unusual ones. As far as I know these prefixes are chosen by the Airlines when a new airline is created, with the approval of the ICAO. The likely restrictions are on making sure each prefix sounds distinct over the radio and can't be confused with others.

The flight number is also useful information. Controllers at (e.g.) JFK will quickly get to know that "United three four five" is going to Miami in the late afternoon every day. Also note that scheduled flight callsigns don't stick with an aircraft, but a flight. If UA345 is being flown by a different plane today it still has the same callsign.

So for scheduled flights a perfectly good system of callsigns exists that includes very useful information.

For non-scheduled flight, replacing the tail number callsign with an arbitrarily chosen pair of words is removing useful information. The tail number can be traced back to an aircraft, in a database that already exists. You should also remember that except in exceptional circumstances a callsign is truncated to the last two or three numbers after the first exchange, meaning that two arbitrarily chosen words might take longer to say than three numbers. Outside the US the norm is to reduce the callsign to the last two letters - making it exactly as long as two arbitrary words.

ATC (and others) need to be able to trace what is said on the radio back to a known aircraft and do it easily. Your proposal adds an extra step to this that didn't exist before. So that's a disadvantage to be overcome.

P.S. It's a mistake to think that "having a lot of words to choose from" makes things clearer or easier to distinguish. Not all pilots speak English as a first language. It's very possible that an arbitrarily chosen callsign is a word that is unfamiliar to some of the pilots around. Also don't forget that a lot of aviation happens outside of the US. Are Russian or Chinese pilots allowed to choose Russian or Chinese words? What happens when they visit the US? Everybody can learn 26 letters and ten numbers (and some airline names). Learning arbitrary words is much more difficult.

Answer 2

As DJClayworth touched on, your proposal would create too many words to make them standard. Standard phraseology is much easier to learn and also much easier to understand over the radio since you have an idea of what you're listening for. Airline call signs are standard (and common enough in their area) and can be clarified phonetically with three letter ICAO codes. Flight numbers can be spelled out individually. Same with registration numbers. Using random words would get confusing quickly. If they're not understood they would need to be spelled out and that would defeat any benefit of brevity.

I think it would also be a lot more difficult than you assume to exclude the words most often used when talking to ATC. For one, there are almost 70,000 fixes and waypoints just in the FAA jurisdiction that have names. VORs and NDBs used for navigation have their own names. There are also many named instrument procedures for departures, arrivals, and approaches into many airports with many names. Lastly, standard phraseology can only cover so much, so pilots and ATC will sometimes fall back to plain English. All of these cases could create situations of confusion if aircraft start using the same or similar words to identify themselves.

The entire global ATC system is built based on humans identifying a specific aircraft by an ID of only about 8 characters, whether that is a call sign and number or a registration number. It's lot easier for ATC to have UAL485 on their screen than UnitedDreamer or even UALDreamer. It's going to be extremely hard to change all of that unless you have an extremely compelling case with clear benefits for everyone. Even today METARs are still reported in an arcane mix of abbreviations based on both English and French, and NOTAMs have their own abbreviations. Spelling everything out wouldn't even change the meaning. But having a concise format that everyone has learned and used for decades is hard to change.

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Ships are a notable exception to the convention of using numbers in that they are primarily identified by their names, but there are several reasons for that tradition:

• A ship crew and passengers will live on the ship for voyages of weeks or months, which gives them a much more personal attachment than most airline crew and passengers boarding a different aircraft every day, or even multiple in a day.
• Ships are more unique, especially historically, whereas aircraft are more mass-produced and a specific one isn't that special.
• Even today the commercial ship fleet has an average age of about 20 years, while the airliner fleet age is around 10 years, so the specific ships will stick around longer.
• Though aviation has borrowed some things from the maritime world, the tradition of naming ships goes back much further than the relatively new field of aviation.
• While there is certainly communication needed to coordinate movements especially around ports, ships don't have a global system like ATC that they are always in contact with for navigation and control.

That being said, some airlines do name their aircraft. It's just informal and the airplane is still primarily known by its registration and flight number.