Earlier I asked:

: Related question: How did Northwest Airlines get "US" as a
: registration number suffix?


Ron Natalie replies:

The suffixes aren't assigned to a particular airline.
The airline requests them when the register the aircraft.
Most likely NWA acquired those particular planes from US
Air. You see lots of Continental livery with xxxPE
numbers from the old People Express day.

I could've phrased that better: Why did Northwest *request*
the "US" suffix? "PA," "U," "AA," etc., are easy to
understand. But you'd think that Northwest would've gone
with "NW." Maybe they were hoping to edge Pan Am aside
as the pre-eminent U.S. flag carrier eventually.

I first noticed the "US" suffix on Northwest airplanes
(707s, 720s, 727s) in 1971, maybe six months before the
D.B. Cooper hijacking, and since then I've seen lots of
old pictures from the Fifties and early Sixties of DC6s/
7s, Stratocruisers, and Electras in Northwest livery with
registrations ending in "US." It predates USAir by a long
time.



Geoff

--
"I'm going to fly 'till I die!" -- Jessica Dubroff