Airplanes are like cars, each one has a specific and unique license plate number, but on aircraft the number is painted on the aircraft, usually near the tail. (Hence, the term "tail number.") Each country has a registration prefix set aside for their exclusive use. Aircraft registered in the United Kingdom carry the "G-" prefix, France has the "F-" prefix, and closer to home, Canadian airplanes carry a "C-" prefix. Some countries, like the ones I mentioned, use all letters in their registrations, but the U.S. uses the "N-" prefix followed by a combination of numbers and letters. I have no earthy idea why we didn't get the "U" designation, but I think it is because the Soviet Union originally used this before World War II. If anyone knows for sure, please post the answer. By the way, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) guidelines for registration numbers can be found here.
The other airplane freaks (besides me) among us know that we normally use "WN" (for our IATA airline code), "SW" or "SA" as our standard registration suffixes for our aircraft. When we went to the FAA to reserve the "N700xx" block of registrations for our Boeing 737-700s, we found that a lot of other aircraft owners like to use 700 numbers in their own registrations. No doubt, high rollers especially like N711xx. As a result, we had to scramble to find suffixes that had not already been taken because some folks had beat us to the punch and were already using our preferred suffixes. So, we turned to the initials of some of our VIPs, and in addition to Herb's (HK) and Colleen's (CB) initials, we used "GS" for Gene Stewart our 737-700 Project Director, "JW" for Jim Wimberly, our now retired Executive Vice President Aircraft Operations (and fellow aircraft nut), "RR" for Ron Ricks, Senior Vice President Law, Airports & Public Affairs, and "GB" for Gary Barron, our former Executive Vice President Operations. We also used "LV" as a contraction for LUV. As the 737-700 fleet grew, we ran out of the N700xx numbers, and next went to N400xx and are currently in the N200xx block. Incidentally, our retired 737-200s used numbers from 20 to about 105, our 737-300s are in the 300 and 600 blocks, and our 737-500s use the 500 block. Unlike some other airlines that assign additional "fleet numbers" (which don't always correspond to the registration) to their aircraft for internal identification, we use the N-number for internal identification.
Comments
I'm pretty sure N stands for "North America."
Which makes me wonder: What does Mexico use?
Hi Adam, Mexico uses "XA-"
From Aerospaceweb.org
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0257.shtml
"It is not entirely clear why N was originally chosen for the United States when U and US were available and would seem more logical choices (A for America might also be a good choice but was used for Austria for some period of time). The prevailing theory as to why N was chosen dates back to the days of Morse code when an international conference agreed to identify various nations by a one-letter designation to avoid confusion. Since the US Navy had already been using N to identify its stations, it is believed that this letter was chosen to represent the entire United States. Many of these wireless communication codes were later adopted for aviation as well, so the N was carried over and has been retained to the present day."
"N" in no way stands for North America. I tend to believe the theory posted by Speed.
Mexico uses not only XA but also XB and XC. It appears that XA is used for commercial aircraft (e.g. Aeromexico) while XB and XC are used for private and state-owned aircraft.
The rules for registration numbers for the USA and Germany are at http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi?pass*83105517!mtd*40!ref*www.landings.com/_landings/pages/search/!pg*reg_rules.html.
All known current and historical prefixes can be found at http://www8.landings.com/cgi-bin/get_file?prefix_p.html.
If you want to look up a registration for a USA registered aircraft, just enter the N number into Google. At the top of the page, you'll be asked if you want to look up the registration of that aircraft.
you can also look up n numbers here:
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_inquiry.asp
Is the schedule for the speciality aircraft a guarded secret or could I call
the IFLYSWA number and ask them if any of the special planes is schedule to
come to my nearest Southwest airport? What would be the best way to ask for that
information? Great explanation on the tails!
I don't think its required that N### be followed necessarily by 2 letters. I know Continental has some aircraft with N#####
(N followed by 5 numbers, no letters). The registration number rule links above show this to be allowed.
Would Southwest ever consider the N##### arrangement?
Hi Scott and Matt,
Thanks for your questions. First off, Scott, our Reservations folks don't get the specific routing for each aircraft, they havge enough information to impart without needing access to that info, and in all honesty, only the aircraft nuts like us would be even interested. With 451 aircraft, it takes several folks in our Dispatch and Maintenance Departments working fulltime on aircraft routings to operate our almost 3,100 daily flights all across the nation. While a specific aircraft is assigned to a routing "package", kind of like the way our Crews are scheduled--see Carole's post--it is not unusual for an aircraft to be swapped to another line to keep our flights ontime. So, even if our Res folks had that info, there is no real guarantee that a specific aircraft would be on the flight.
Matt, there is no rule that we couldn't use all numbers. However, go back to my last sentence in the post about fleet numbers. If we went to five digit registrations, we would have to come up with three or four digit fleet numbers to ID our aircraft internally because the registration numbers would be so long--we try to keep things simple, so why add a second set of numbers. As it is today for our internal ID, we only use the 3-digit numbers, and will refer to an airplane as N702 without using the prefixes. Incidentally, foreign carriers use the last two or three letters of a all-letter registration for internal identification. For example, British Airways Concordes were registered G-BOAA, G-BOAB, G-BOAC, G-BOAD, etc. The fleet ID for the last one, as an example, was "AD" or "Alpha Delta"
Brian
I am an old, bold pilot ( they say there is no such animal) and happen to know the origin of the "N" prefix. It is really too simple to
be a question but when airplanes of the thirties were licenced, the National Aeronautic Association, ( FAA is the successor to the
NAA), airplanes all had the prefix of NC. Like the Spirit of St Louis had the NC prefix. As time went on the prefix number on an
airplane, the FAA dropped the "C" and the numbers just became N------. The people at Southwest will be happy to know that
my Aircraft Number is N 777 RB. Many people have coveted that number like Richard Bach and Reading and Bates Offshore Drilling Corp. and a host of others. I keep that number for many reasons, the most important reason is that I have had that number
for over 30 years, and was on my airplane, a highly modified turbocharged Beechcraft Bonanza that I piloted to WIN the
First Transatlantic Air Race in 1985, it was aptly named "The Spirit of Tulsa" I taught the Europeans and some American
hotshots how to win air races. The "N" number simply stands for "National".
With warm personal regards, Richard Blissit ( N 777 RB)
I was at Midway the day before yesterday and flew out on AC # N219JC. Does anyone know who that stands for? I was joking with the CSA and we decided since the flight was going to Salt Lake City, it must stand for Jesus Christ... Of course who can forget about the tail numbers we have that end in "AA" those are the leased planes from American Airlines.
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