Air Mike? (or similar sounding call sign)

[Dumb Pilot]

How come Continental uses this call sign in Japan? Why not their own?

 

[EMBpilot]

Different certificate.

 

[AWACoff]

Only the pilots of Continental Air Micronesia are employed by Continental. Everyone else is Air Micronesia. As EMB said, it's an entirely different operating certificate, hence the "Air Mike" call sign. When the 767 is flying from HNL-GUM-NRT and vice versa, it is also under the "Air Mike" call sign.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

Only the pilots of Continental Air Micronesia are employed by Continental. Everyone else is Air Micronesia. As EMB said, it's an entirely different operating certificate, hence the "Air Mike" call sign. When the 767 is flying from HNL-GUM-NRT and vice versa, it is also under the "Air Mike" call sign.

Thank you, so it is a wet lease deal then? I was just curious

 

[AWACoff]

Thank you, so it is a wet lease deal then? I was just curious

No, it's not a wet lease deal... CAL owns the Air Micronesia certificate. CAL chooses to staff the Air Mike certificate with it's own pilots but all of the other employees are specifically Air Mike.

CAL is using the Air Mike operation (which is profitable) as collateral. For whatever reasons, they are staffing this airline as a separate airline even though it is pretty much seemless. We use the same flight manuals and flight operation manuals (with differences specific to Air Mike differentiated).

I believe the IAH-NRT and EWR-NRT flights use the "Continental" callsign. Only CMI flights use the "Air Mike" callsign.