what does the flag and combination of letters mean on different planes?

It started off as a pretty much 1:1 between ITU and ICAO, because airfields and aircraft needed to register as radio stations. But on the ground the ICAO have deviated from that wildly. The continental US still uses K from its ITU assignment(s), but for pacific airfields (alaska, hawaii, etc) they use P for Pacific. Which the ITU has assigned to the Netherlands. (And the Netherlands uses EH (europe/holland) which the ITU assigned to Spain .. but only for airfields. For aircraft they still use the ITU prefixes.)

Then Ireland makes an interesting example because by chance (eg, only because their EI/EJ already overlapped with the ICAO E-region), they managed to keep their ITU prefix for airfields - and it might be only Ireland and the US that can say that.

None of this is to disagree with you, you're entirely correct .. for aircraft registrations. But there's just as much that ICAO and ITU don't agree on too.

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laurens93@reddit

Netherlands used H very early on (Holland) and now all aircraft registrations start with PH.

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testthrowawayzz@reddit

piggybacking on this, is the font regulated too?

It seems like all the painted aircraft registration text all have the same font

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wrong_axiom@reddit

Not the font, but I think there is something about using roman letters with arabic numbers, and that it has to be sans-serif with the specific contrast, but I don't think there is a "font" that is forced.

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

ahh cool thank you! :)

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shlepky@reddit

Ireland in Irish is Éire

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wrong_axiom@reddit

Exactly! So many countries have an endonym that is so different from what the world knows them by

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anemisto@reddit

Am I the only person who thinks that very much does not look like the Irish flag?

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

it does look a little blue in the photo! but i did take the photo in ireland so i can confirm it was green white and orange! :)

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TheShipBeamer@reddit

People shouldn't be down voting you the green almost looks blue at this angle

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wrong_axiom@reddit

How does the Irish flag looks like to you?

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anemisto@reddit

Green and not blue?

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wrong_axiom@reddit

It's green but the color of the picture is off, the plane is white and not light blue. Here is with color correction.

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GarlicoinAccount@reddit

It's actually a rather dark shade of green.

(Maybe from a phone camera app "enhancing" the colours?)

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Low-E_McDjentface@reddit

Pictures can look differently on different displays. Looks like an irish flag to me.

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zed42@reddit

it looks blue-white-orange to me...

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Messtin920@reddit

Oh no not the 2015 dress again

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Kalkin93@reddit

Nah I was looking and was thinking it was the French flag at first, the colours are just very dark - if you zoom in you can see it's a dark green hue :)

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NoFewSatan@reddit

Yes, you are.

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Inevitable_Mess_5988@reddit

???

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h3ffr0n@reddit

Another fun fact is that on aircraft, the flag on the star board side is often mirrored, as if the flag was flown on a pole during flight.

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

that is a fun fact thank you!

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sillygooberfella@reddit

It's a license plate basically

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CStites23@reddit

Never thought of it that way, but 100% accurate.

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FSX_Pilot@reddit

Aircraft registration, however, don't be fooled as if you look closely in some pictures, Airlines like MIAT prefer to leave some of their aircraft regs to Ireland. This was prominent in Russia pre 2022, as You could see basically most mainline fleet having VP-, VQ-, or EI registration, at least until 2022

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greystonian@reddit

Because Ireland has major aircraft leasing companies. The aircraft remain registered in Ireland.

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Dave_A480@reddit

Flying version of 'flag of convenience' in shipping... Albeit with a much less dodgy reputation....

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epicureanengineer@reddit

Yes! I used to work for a Latin American airline and at the time most of the fleet was “echo India” while the rest was “November” (USA).

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FSX_Pilot@reddit

IIRC, not just Ireland, but Bermuda too

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12358132134@reddit

EI - Eastern Ireland, reffers to where the aircraft is registered IFR - Instrument Flight Rules, meaning that aircraft can fly in bad weather

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omvargas@reddit

As others have said, the flag is for the country of origin of the aircraft/airline and the letters are like a license plate, with the two letters being a code for the country of registration.

However, sometimes airlines or airplane owners choose to register their aircraft in another country, and it's not necessarily a tax haven or something like that. For example, some airlines in Latin America (like Avianca and Volaris) have flags of Costa Rica or El Salvador, but have American Nxxxx registrations.

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Cagliari77@reddit

EI- is for Ireland. IT for Italy, FR for France etc. Rest is registration characters. Like a car's license plate. I don't think they mean anything. They're randomly picked but eventually all registrations are unique.

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IC_1318@reddit

Italy is I, France is F, and I don't believe the letters are always randomly picked. For example, Air Corsica aircraft are all registered as F-HXK#, with XK also being their two-letter airline code. They probably requested that, for some reason.

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Cagliari77@reddit

Yes could be. FR is Ryanair so IFR works that way as well. But then what if A to Z is all exhausted? Not sure. Is the second part always 3 characters only?

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747ER@reddit

RyanAir also owns EI-IFP, IFS, IFT, IFV, IFW, IFX, IFY, and IFZ. The fact that the last two letters of the registration happen to be the airline code is a coincidence. Here’s an Alliance Airlines plane with ‘QF’ (Qantas’ IATA code) as its registration, VH-UQF:

As for your second question, yes almost all countries have a set amount of letters/numbers. Australia will always have VH-xxx, Ireland will always have EI-xxx, France will always have F-xxxx. There are some countries with more number-based registrations that do differ in length like Azerbaijan (anything from 4K-AZ1 to 4K-AZ999, as well as 4K-10000 to 4K-99999 is accepted), but these countries are not very common.

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By-Eck@reddit

Most countries charge extra for specific requests and I don't think Ryanair would nwaste money on that (although Ryanair UK has registered aircraft in the G-RUK? sequence - maybe it's cheaper in the UK).

Because so many leasing companies have registered aircraft in Eire, the Irish register is pretty used up, so it has been expanded and now includes EJ-xxxx (four letters, not three as with EI-).

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ByteSpark@reddit

IFR is likely just a coincidence here, in Ireland they're normally assigned sequentially, but you can request an out of sequence registration for an extra fee assuming it's not already taken. I doubt Ryanair did, but they might have because somebody liked the IFR reg ( it's kind of a pun on instrument flight rules)

Ireland also has a second registry EJ- . I believe some countries allow reusing registrations if the previous aircraft had been deregistered. As far as I recall, Ireland does not allow that.

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By-Eck@reddit

That's due to a specific request, countries usually just issue the next combination of letters (or numbers, or both) in whatever sequence they are using.

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vtol_ssto@reddit

That's just incorrect.

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xXCrazyDaneXx@reddit

A for effort, but no.

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gilby24@reddit

And Australia is VH-

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Cagliari77@reddit

Of course, like cars. I mixed up with internet codes for a moment :)

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AndrewC275@reddit

First I was thinking to myself, “What a wholesome question this is,” and was planning to welcome OP to a whole new world of aviation geekdom. Then I noticed that OP never acknowledged to any of our comments. Now I just assume it was a karma-farming bot post.

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

i’m a real person i promise!! i thought the link that showed all the journeys the plane has done was super cool

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AndrewC275@reddit

Yay! Welcome to a whole new world of aviation geekdom!

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

anymore fun aviation facts please feel free to share :)

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w1lnx@reddit

They are both the national registration for the aircraft.

In that case, Ireland.

Also, tail numbers beginning “EI” are Ireland.

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DisplacedTrooper@reddit

Where the aircraft is registered. EI is Ireland, hence the Irish flag. The whole is the registration, like a car plate.

Here you have the list of prefixes defined by IATA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_registration_prefixes

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aviationevangelist@reddit

Country of origin for the airline and registration. In this case EI is Ireland.

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New_Line4049@reddit

The flag is the country of registration. The letters are called the tail number. Its a unique identifier for that exact airframe, like the registration plate on a car. The first part, in this case EI, is a country code. EI says the aircraft is registered in Ireland, G would be the UK. D is Germany, you get the point. The following letters are a unique series of characters to identify the airframe.

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Ilyer_@reddit

The last three letters are so the air traffic controllers can use their binos to see if the aircraft is operating under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Other aircraft have VFR for Visual Flight Rules.

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SiriusBlack99999@reddit

It means the pylot can fly instrument rules, like in snow and when it is really really really dark. Bloody show off.

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LefsaMadMuppet@reddit

This is Old McDonald's plane, when confirming communication with ATC he ends with , "E-I-I-F-R"

/s

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AlternativeGreedy787@reddit

Sadly there is no EI-EIO jet - closest is EI-EIN

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Specialist_Reality96@reddit

There is however a G-TOWS and a VH-TUG, both are glider tow planes.

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AlternativeGreedy787@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Planespotting/comments/1bnhtf2/funny_plane_registrations/

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Connect_Pass_3516@reddit

Cool reg though... IFR

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Cesalv@reddit

Pilot's vanity plate, in this case, pilot is irish and certified for instrumental flight only

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Puddleduck97@reddit

Some countries mandate that their flag is displayed on aircraft if they are the state that the aircraft is registered to, some do not.

The US for example does not, Germany and Switzerland do.

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wosmo@reddit

Just like the number plate on a car.

Because it uniquely identifies that aircraft, you can have fun with things like

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ei-ifr

https://www.jetphotos.com/registration/EI-IFR

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Positive-String-3933@reddit (OP)

cool!!

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AJsarge@reddit

The letters are the aircraft's tail number or registration, and the flag is associated with it. You might be looking at Ryan Air flight 123D, leaving Shannon every other day at 3:25pm, but the plane used for that flight changes. "EI" means it's registered in Ireland, and it's aircraft IFR in Ireland's registry. Each country has its own prefix, i.e. the US uses N, so tail number get colloquially referred to as N-numbers here.

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MoccaLG@reddit

Different countries have different IDs

For Example - Germany has D-ADDL - First Letter is Country = D=Deutschland= Germany second is the aircraft class A = Large Aeroplanes above 20 tons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration

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sercialinho@reddit

Flag: country of registration

Letters before the "-": code of the country of registration

Letters (sometimes numbers) after the "-": registration of that aircraft (together with the letters before the "-" it is a unique registration for the given airframe, like a licence plate on a car).

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Simple-Document-2735@reddit

Flag and first two letters indicate which country the aircraft is registered in. The rest are unique characters to identify that particular aircraft. Think of it as a number plate but for planes!