Unique Airline Callsigns of the World Quiz

Answer: British Airways

British Airways' 'Speedbird' callsign is very famous around the world, and often used in different media when the Heathrow-based airline is seen.

Answer: US Airways

US Airways originally started with the callsign 'USAir'. When they merged with America West Airlines in 2005, they used the callsign of America West for all US Airways flights.

Answer: China Airlines

The Dynasty callsign is relatively famous in the aviation world and is operated by the incident-plagued China Airlines. Not to be confused with Air China, China Airlines is based in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan) while Air China is based in Beijing, People's Republic of China.

Answer: SkyEurope

Commencing operations in 2002, SkyEurope was a small airline based in Slovakia. Operating a fleet of Boeing 737s, it was never profitable, and collapsed with large debts in 2009.

Answer: ExpressJet

The callsign of the former ASA has always been an interesting one. ASA started operations in 1979 with the callsign 'Acey'. However, an NM-based fighter unit had the callsign 'Acer', and the FAA insisted on one of the changing their callsign to prevent possible confusion. In 1999, Atlantic Southeast changed it callsign to 'Candler', after Asa Candler, who was the founder of Coca Cola in Atlanta. In 2006, ASA was allowed to change its callsign back to 'Acey' after the fighter unit ceased operations.

Atlantic Southeast Airlines merged with ExpressJet in 2011, keeping the callsign and operating certificate of ASA, but inheriting the ExpressJet name.

Answer: PSA Airlines

PSA Airlines was founded in 1983 as Jetstream International Airlines (JIA). JIA was purchased by the former Piedmont Airlines in 1986. After Piedmont was acquired by US Airways in 1988, JIA started operations under the US Airways Express name. In 1995, the airline's name was changed to PSA Airlines to protect the trademark of Pacific Southwest Airlines, otherwise the name would be available to a competitor.

Answer: Virgin America

Some carriers choose callsigns to represent something native to their geographical locations (hence the "Cactus" callsign for Phoenix-based US Airways). Therefore, San Francisco-based Virgin America uses the callsign "Redwood", after the world's tallest living thing that resides in California.

Answer: Brickyard

Republic Airlines is based in Indianapolis, Indiana - thus the callsign is a reference to the Brickyard 400, an annual motor race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Answer: Belgium

The Belgian flag carrier was formed in 2006 after a merger with Virgin Express. Prior to the merger, the callsign "S-tail" was used, a reference to the airline's former logo which consisted of a stylised letter "S".

Answer: Xanadu

In this instance, the callsign "Xanadu" is a reference to the airline name, AirAsia X. "Asian Express" is the callsign of AirAsia, the short-haul arm of the same company.