Originally Posted by alex0683de
Well, the problem is there are just too many airlines, so they ran out of lettercodes at some point. Then they added the numbers, though that's probably also just a stop-gap solution if the business keeps growing like it has been. That's why some airlines have switched to ICAO codes, like EZY - Britain's Easyjet.
... which does have an IATA code -- it's just that they don't publicize it much. EasyJet is U2. (I actually wonder why they
don't put a marketing message around it -- it's not exactly hard to remember, and although they probably can't afford to hire Bono for commercials, you'd think you'd get a 'you too can fly easyJet because it's so cheap even you can afford it' message out of there.)