Confusion/Issue with Airline/Flight number/Callsign fields

SimBrief Dispatch
1

Hi there,

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)

Many thanks,

2

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

3

Hi,

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to cases where the incorrect ICAO airline might be used in the callsign (if SimBrief’s IATA/ICAO airline code list is out of date, or the user is using a defunct airline, among other examples).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.

Best regards,

4

Thanks for taking the time to reply. That makes complete sense and is clearly the lessor of the two evils.

Out of interest would it be possible to expand the way you convert the ICAO code to the IATA code on the RYR layout to other layouts?