Day in and day out for nearly three decades, dozens of times per flight, pilots for US Airways and its predecessor, America West Airlines, have uttered a two-syllable emblem of Arizona from the cockpit.
"Cactus."
"Phoenix tower, Cactus 645 ready for departure." "Cactus 542 heading one three zero and climbing to one four thousand." "Cactus 1569 cleared to cross."
Every conversation with air-traffic controllers and ground operations included the airline's prickly FAA shorthand.
Until late Wednesday morning. On an overcast day at Philadelphia International Airport, a US Airways flight from London used it for the last time.
The Cactus call sign, a piece of Arizona history that dates back to 1987 and got an assist from Arizona Sen. John McCain, was retired, a casualty of the US Airways-American Airlines merger. The combined airline is now using American Airlines' call sign, American.
The midweek change was invisible to passengers but memorialized — and, in many cases, rued — by thousands of employees, especially those whose roots go back to Tempe-based America West Airlines. They saw Cactus as the last vestige of America West.
The scrappy carrier began in 1983 with five destinations, expanded as far as Hawaii and Japan and survived a three-year bankruptcy case and 9/11 before merging with US Airways in 2005. In that merger, Cactus prevailed over US Airways' call sign, USAir, even though the merged airline took the US Airways name.
Leslie Bohi, an America West flight attendant from 1986 to 2004 who still organizes America West reunions, posted a goodbye cactus message on a Facebook page she created for former employees.
"Today ... marks the day that we say goodbye to the last trace of AWA," it said. "CACTUS is retired into airline history. We all know where we came from, who we really are and what remains in our hearts — America West Airlines. To my airline family, you should be proud that our little airline has had 32 yrs of successful flying! BRAVO AWA!!!!!"
The post drew 700 likes and was shared dozens of times.
America West co-founder Ed Beauvais, 78, called Wednesday a sad day for the America West Airlines tradition. He found out Cactus was headed into the sunset in a Tuesday phone call from his daughter, a former America West flight attendant who now flies for NetJets.
"(Cactus) was a perfect name for America West,'' he said. "Everybody was proud of it.''
Cactus, which made countless aviation-geek lists of cool call signs alongside British Airways' Speedbird and Aer Lingus' Shamrock, wasn't America West's original call sign. It was America West. But in 1987, the Federal Aviation Administration asked the rapidly growing airline to change its call sign because there was too much confusion with other airlines, including Southwest, Northwest, Skywest, StatesWest and Wings West.
America West had about 600 pilots then and asked for suggestions on a new, one-word call sign. The finalists were Roadrunner, Firebird, Phoenix and Cactus.
Cactus won, but there was a problem. It was already in use.
"My understanding is that there was an Army general on the East Coast that had a King Air (private plane) and that was his military call sign,'' said Ken Wood, a 28-year company veteran who is now director of flight for Phoenix at US Airways/American.
Wood and Beauvais said McCain was instrumental in getting the Cactus call sign transferred to his hometown airline. McCain declined repeated requests for an interview.
The offbeat call sign spread beyond the cockpit. America West's employee groups were called Cactus Clubs, and the reunions are sometimes called Cactus Reunions.
Cactus landed in the national spotlight in January 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549 splash-landed in the Hudson River in New York City after a bird strike crippled both engines. All passengers and crew survived. When the FAA released the cockpit recordings, more than a few people asked why the captain said "Cactus 1549" instead of "US Airways 1549." A YouTube video of the recording has more than 1.6 million views.
"Why does the captain refer to his plane as 'Cactus' 1549, and not US Airways 1549?" a post on frequent-flier message board FlyerTalk.com said. "Does 'Cactus' refer to the fact that US was taken over by America West, and their HQ (Tempe AZ) is where you can find lots of cactus (cactii ?) ?"
As Cactus' final days approached this week, employees and aviation buffs grew nostalgic. On the April 8 page of his calendar, Wood noted, "Say Goodbye, Cactus." Aviation enthusiasts started a thread on liveatc.net for people to post audio clips of the last flights using the Cactus call sign. It was called the Cactus Clip Challenge.
US Airways captain Ward Motz and first officer Richard Phillis took a selfie with other crew members at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. They knew their Tuesday night red-eye flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia would be one of the last to use Cactus. Flight attendant Jo Martin suggested they take a selfie at the airport while waiting for a shuttle to the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, where they stayed on a layover until their red-eye.
Motz posted the photo to his Facebook page and was overwhelmed with likes and comments from fellow pilots and others.
"It's a historic event," he said.
He and Phillis didn't know how historic Flight 2026 would be until they were 20 minutes outside Philadelphia early Wednesday morning.
As the Airbus A321 began its descent and the flight was handed over to Philadelphia air-traffic control, the controller said his version of goodbye to Cactus on top of the usual landing directions.
"It was a pleasure working all the Cactus," he said.
Flight 2026 was the last domestic flight to use Cactus.
A few hours after Flight 2026 landed, US Airways Flight 774 from London, the final flight to use Cactus, landed in Philadelphia.
Captain Edwin Stadelman said it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the call sign for the last time after the plane was cleared to cross the runway.
His sign-off: "Cactus, out."
Original article can be found here: http://www.azcentral.com
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