V-Flyer

Being the slight boffin I am, sometimes in advance of a flight I try to work out what rotation the aircraft will have operated earlier in the day as it's often a good pointer for knowing if my flight will be on time.

There's a pretty good website http://www.lhr-lgw.co.uk/ for this but recently the way they display the info has changed. In the listings it seems to be a mixture of the familiar flight numbers and sometimes a slighly different number is used.

For example, this flight is EZY8792 and that's fine:
23:54 Arr EZY8792 G-EZFS A319-111 [4129] Easyjet

However this flight, which is EZY8791 shows like this:
15:17 Dep EZY791Y G-EZFS A319-111 [4129] Easyjet

Often the numbers are a jumbled round concoction of the normal flight numbers, eg. EZY87ER, EZY516M

Just wondered if anyone knows what exactly these call signs are? I've plugged a few into Google and get instant hits to http://www.libhomeradar.org/ but still can't quite work out what these numbers are all about. I've seen reference to the term 'alternative call sign'?

Anyone know?

Cheers
James

EZY 791Y is a radio callsign, EZY 8971 is a flight number. The callsign is used by the crew and air traffic control, whereas the flight number is used for passengers. Similar thing happens at Virgin. The VS 3 ( flight number) is the VIR 3J for air traffic control purposes.

Many thanks for that Freddie. I wonder why though inthe listings on http://www.lhr-lgw.co.uk/ around half of the flight listed use the regular flight number and the rest are these radio call signs?

I don't like the change to the lhr-lgw site personally, especially for the current listing, that are no longer listed by operator.

The basic reason for this is to avoid confusion/mishearing of flight call signs. For example you might have BA177 and BA117, which in the heat of the moment can be misheard.

Previous thread I remembered talking about call signs

Thanks for that Tinks.....every bit helps :-)