An interesting discussion has just come up surrounding the dispatch fields when creating a flight plan. It seems to be a mismatch of ICAO and IATA requirements.
Airline - The Airlines ICAO code is wanted
Flight number - A Flight number is an IATA number suffixed to the IATA code
ATC Callsign - ICAO airline code plus suffix
Simbrief then joins the Airline and Flight number together. Is this not joining an ICAO code to an IATA flight designator?
As an example here is the current system;
Airline; BEE
Flight Number; 1409
ATC callsign; BEE489L
(Generates BEE1409 & BEE489L on the flight plan… Two ICAO codes)
Should it not be;
Airline; BE
Flight Number; 1409
ATC callsign; BEE489L
(Generating BE1409 & BEE489L on the flight plan… One IATA code and one ICAO code)
Further to this I’ve just looked up some real life flight plans and they do indeed have IATA codes where Simbrief is generating a weird hybrid between ICAO and IATA
SimBrief uses the ICAO airline code in the “Airline” option because the ATC callsign is an optional entry. Many users don’t enter an ATC callsign, in which case it defaults to “Airline” + “Flight Number”.
If SimBrief had users enter the IATA code in the “Airline” option, it would have to do an IATA-ICAO lookup to create the default callsign. This would lead to cases where the incorrect ICAO airline might be used in the callsign (if SimBrief’s IATA/ICAO airline code list is out of date, or the user is using a defunct airline, among other examples).
The ATC callsign is arguably the most important thing to get right, especially for those that prefile their flights on a network (VATSIM, etc).
This is entirely OFP layout dependant. Try the “RYR” layout and you will see that the IATA code is used on the OFP paperwork, even when entering the airline’s ICAO code in the “Airline” option.
While I understand the reasoning behind, as explained above, I’m not sure I agree on the choice - and can frankly see that Simbrief isn’t consistent with this choice:
I’ve just made a flightplan from AMS to NAP with Transavia. The flightnumber IRL is HV6411 and radio callsign is TRA18X. As Simbrief doesn’t allow me to enter HV6411 as the flightnumber, I wrote TRA6411 as the flightnumber and entered TRA18x as the radio callsign. Interestingly, when I look at the chart on the flightplan, the correct flightnumber (HV6411) is shown on bottom the chart. So somehow, Simbrief IS actually looking up the IATA code! But at the top of the chart TRA 6411, as entered by me, still shows up. Not very consistent. As the Flightsim comunity is evolving to better and better recreating RW procedures (which is why Simbrief and Navigraph charts are so vital for flightplanning - otherwise the build-in solution in the flightsim would be good enough), and Simbrief/Navigraph is envolved in teaching fligthsimmers correct procedures - then perhaps it is time Simbrief changes this inconsistency to reflect RW flightplans.
The decision to display IATA versus ICAO flight number on the OFP is company specific. Just because one company shows IATA on their flight plans, does not automatically mean SimBrief is being inaccurate if it shows ICAO.
Change the OFP layout and you’ll see different flight number formats in different places. Many real-world OFPs show a mix of IATA and ICAO flight numbers, with no obvious logic.
Taking the RYR format as an example, you’ll see IATA shown at the top of each page, as well as on the first line of the first page, and in the header of the weather section. Yet they use ICAO in the header of the NOTAM section. This is all 100% accurate, showing consistent IATA everywhere in SimBrief would be less accurate.
In the case of your specific screenshot (from the KLM layout), showing ICAO in the header was accurate at the time this layout was programmed in SimBrief. This layout is a bit outdated in SimBrief now, eventually we might update it.
Long story short, if you are expecting “realistic” OFP layouts to use consistent IATA codes throughout, this is a false assumption. But if you’re looking for consistency regardless, I’d recommend trying different layouts to find one that better suits your needs. RYR is similar to the default LIDO layout but uses more IATA codes. DLH, EIN, and WZZ are other options that mostly lean towards IATA. But all of these still show ICAO in the NOTAMs section, which seems to be the case for all real-world airlines using LIDO.
I should mention, since you want IATA codes to be displayed everywhere, you should simply enter the IATA code into the flight number on SimBrief.
Just enter HV6411 as the flight number and TRA18X as the callsign. Now your OFP shows IATA everywhere, but the correct ICAO callsign will be used in the ATC flight plan and VATSIM/IVAO prefile links.
