Have you ever wondered why Southwest Airlines uses the IATA code WN instead of SW? The primary reason is because SW was already taken…but may soon be available again.
A Rare Opportunity For Southwest Airlines, Courtesy Of Air Namibia
The urban legend is that Southwest uses WN because former Southwest Airlines President Colleen C. Barrett liked Willie Nelson. Nope. Some say that Southwest chose WN to create customer confusion with Northwest Airlines (NW). Another legend holds that when Southwest was informed that SW was taken, they were randomly assigned WN and said, “Why Not?”
Southwest actually started with the IATA code OE. It isn’t clear why it changed, but the WN was likely assigned randomly.
Why not SW? SW belonged to Air Namibia, which was known as South West Air Transport between 1959 and 1978. Former Southwest President Herb Kelleher did reach out to to Air Namibia in the 1980s to see if it would sell its code, especially with the name change, but Air Namibia allegedly wanted $10 million for it.
A decade later Southwest tried again shortly after Namibian independence and even offered a 737-200, but was again met with a price too steep.
Fast forward to today. Air Namibia just declared it was ceasing operations and would be liquidated. Will Southwest finally have the opportunity to obtain SW as its IATA code?
Hey, it might be a great way to pay severance packages for displaced employees from Air Namibia…
CONCLUSION
While we are all used to WN by now, SW would make a lot more sense. I hope Southwest is already at work trying to secure SW…
Now is your chance @SouthwestAir to pick up the SW @IATA code that has eluded you for decades. https://t.co/f33AaBiGul
— Matthew Klint (@LiveandLetsFly) February 11, 2021
Namibia itself was once referred to as South West Africa ( at least by some)
Even stealing African intellectual property is a form of cultural appropriation and white exploitation.
In this example? Nah, not really.
SkyWest has been using “SW” for many decades until they were all used up. They now use “SY”. Southwest and SkyWest have planes with “SW”. Not sure if Air Namibia using “SW” has anything to do with Southwest not using it too since U.S. carriers are identified by an “N” prefix and Namibia uses “V5”. All the “SW”s in the U.S. have been used up by SkyWest and Southwest.
An airlines IATA code has nothing to do with its registration number. No 2 airlines can use the same IATA code. By the way SkyWests IATA code is OO and their ICAO code is SKW.
I get that. And Spirit has NK and JetBlue has B6.
But Delta has DL, United UA, and American AA. And Southwest has tried twice in the past to get SW.
ETA: Oh, you were responding to Jeff.
@JSmiley, opps, my mistake. I now see what Matthew was referring too.
So what’s the story behind B6?
Thanks Matt! Great article. Most of us airline geeks were not aware of this.
I always loved the Willie Nelson story. I’m gonna continue believing it.
Clever!
Southwest should start service to Namibia. Just a few flights to Cape Town, Jo’burg. Consider St. Helena. If Lufthansa doesn’t have a Frankfurt route, a multi stop hop could be tried. Reno Air had a remote operation in Mississippi before.
@Matthew : not sure if they’d be the least bit interested in it. “CP” opened up for Cathay once AC took in Canadian Pacific but they never bothered to switch away from CX. The WN brand is simply too ingrained in culture to be worth the effort.
At least B6 or F9 has some letters in their names that’s relevant to the code. “SPIRIT” doesn’t have either N or K.
not quite as impressive as a certain shanghai airline though – combine CHINA EASTERN AIRLINES and you still can’t find either M or U.
At some point, will they run out of two-digit IATA codes? Or is that not a risk?
I guess they can always add an X to the existing ones, so DL –> DLX, when they transition to three digits. Of course, then they will look just like airport code…
But now I can’t feel superior for using WN on reddit and getting several ??? replies!