Westwind Airlines - Callsign Confusion?

[Christopher Trott]

Westwind Airlines, a VATSIM VA Partner since the SATCO days, has recently seen a spate of incidents worldwide where ATC has been saying "Wilken Air" when we call up.  All of us have at least "WWW.FLYWESTWIND.ORG" in our flightplan, as required by the VATSIM SOA agreement, and WWA has been our 3-letter and "Westwind" the callsign since the beginning of the VA in 1996.  We did some looking and found "Wilken Air" as a *region restricted* ICAO code and it looks like they typically use other ICAO codes for their actual flights and not WWA anyway.  Can someone from VATSIM look into this and figure out where it's getting pushed out to use the wrong Callsign?  I and several other pilots have sent messages to various vARTCCs and vACCs as it occurs, but that it keeps happening makes me think something bigger is the culprit because it's too widespread to just be random chance.

Edited March 6, 2022 at 06:13 PM by Christopher Trott

[Ross Carlson]

It might come from something as simple as a google search. This came up as result #3 for me when I searched "wwa airline callsign":

https://123atc.com/call-sign/WWA

[Christopher Trott]

I do understand that a Google search finds it as the #3 result, but as quickly as we're getting "Wilkin Air" as a response/call out from ATC, I'm not sure they're doing a Google Search before using it.  Something is showing "Wilkin Air", whether via internal software/webpages or one of the tracking programs because each time it's happened to me it's been nearly instant response.

Even then, is that not a training issue that needs to be addressed?  No controller on VATSIM should ever be using Google to find out a callsign.  They should be looking in the flightplan to see if it's listed there (as per VATSIM VA Partner requirements), and then they should be *asking* the pilot for clarification if it's not.  If they're using Google to look up a callsign, and even worse, correcting a pilot on their callsign (happened to me twice), then I think there's a major training failure that needs to be looked at.

[Torben Andersen]

It also depends on the ICAO list of callsign used by the radar client. As Westwind is "only" a virtual airlines, not replicating a rw airlines, Westwind's callsign might not be in the client's list of callsigns.

[Ross Carlson]

And not all radar clients have such a list.

[Andreas Fuchs]

The airline database of GNG (AeroNav Global Nav Generator) has both: "Wilken Air" as a RW operator and "Westwind" as fictional airline (aka VA). A recent edition of the callsign-file that they had issued had WWA as "Westwind" (the VA), but the latest version is now "Wilken Air". We have to see how we can get this reverted - at least users of Euroscope radar client have this information available when they click on an aircraft tag.

PS: I have sent them a message to have a look at the matter.

Edited March 13, 2022 at 09:01 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Felix Musselmann]

In the GNG each vACC decides by itself if they want to override an existing real world callsign with a fictional one in their files. So there will be files, were the callsign assigned to WWA will be Wilken Air, and there will be cases where the callsign assigned to WWA will be Westwind.

Felix

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hallo Felix,

thanks for the explanation. Do these overrides happen on an individual basis (case by case) or is it a setting like "use VA callsigns in favour of RW callsigns"?

[Felix Musselmann]

Hi Andreas,

it is case by case.

Felix

[Roger Curtiss]

The issue of ATC vs callsigns can also be understood in this context:

The flight plan does not appear automatically on a controller's screen. The controller must request to view it. If a controller is quite busy, they might not have time to look at the flight plan.   It is great that all Westwind flights will state the VA name in the Remarks, that goes a long way toward educating a controller who does check.  For those times when the controller does not check, or simply continues to say the wrong callsign, a brief mention by the pilot (either by voice, text or Chat message should eliminate the issue...at least with that controller!