Aircraft Registration - Decolonisation and Independence

Decolonisation and Independence

The impact of decolonisation and independence on aircraft registration schemes has varied from place to place. Most countries on independence have had a new allocation granted, taken from either an existing ITU allocation or the former country's ITU allocation. For example, after partition in 1947, India retained the VT designation used by the British Raj, while Pakistan adopted the AP designation from the newly allocated ITU callsigns APA-ASZ. Hong Kong, which formerly used the VR-H designation, had the "VR" replaced with the Chinese "B" upon the 1997 Handover to China, resulting in aircraft designations with only four letters in total (as opposed to the international norm of five letters).