The Military Alphabet will make you sound like a private jet pro

Even if you are a novice in booking private jet flights, knowing the phonetic Military Alphabet will make you sound like an industry veteran

Every industry has its alphabet soup if industry lingo and acronyms. If you are in an FBO – that’s a fixed-base operator – or as many people say, private jet terminal – you probably hear lots of business aviation speak behind the counter.

When talking to your broker, operator, or FBO, oftentimes you are asked to reference your tail number. Just saying the letters over the phone can often cause confusion. Was that a G or an E? Say it again, please.

Across aviation, the phonetic Military Alphabet is the preferred way of making sure the person on the other end of that radio understands what you are talking about.

For example, to identify your tail number, instead of reading of N – F – X – Q – T – Z, you would use a word to represent each letter.

Those words are the core of the Military Alphabet. For the above example, you would say, “November – Foxtrot – X-ray – Quebec – Tango – Zulu.

To help you sound like a pro every time, and make sure the person on the other end of the line gets your information correctly, below is an A to Z guide to the Military Alphabet.

Military Alphabet