In all seriousness, how did these flights get mistaken for "America West?" Anyone got any ideas?
Cactus call sign?
ATC identifier?
Other?
I know nothing about that sort of stuff and am curious.
I've got visions of the web address that still shows www.usairways.com/awa
USAirways flights are identified within the FAA Air Traffic Control system with the designator "AWE." If this reporter received any official FAA reports on the flight, it would have been referred to as AWE 1522, or AWE 1525. That is likely where the reporter got the "America West" reference.
For over a decade, USAirways flights were desginated by "USA XXXX." Before that, the old Allegheny designator AAA was used. Back in the early 90's the company did lot of negotiating and maneuvering to get "US" or "USA" assigned to the flights. They did a three-way trade with the US Air Force and some other outfit to get it done. The boasted quite noisily about their "coup" when they finally got the "US," and later, "USA."
Then, in their wisdom, Tempe decided to go with the "Cactus" call sign last September. In their wisdom, they neglected to ask actual (not management) air traffic controllers what they thought about the change. Things were difficult on the frequencies for a few weeks while the controllers tried desperately to match "USA" on their screens with "Cactus" from their mouths. Finally, the fix was to abandon the hard won "USA" in favor of "AWE," since "AWE" always meant "Cactus" to the controllers.
With disuse, "USA" will likely be reassigned after a time period to some other company. Nice job, Ed.
THAT'S probably why the Charlotte Observer is still writing about America West flights doing go-arounds.
