When the registration requires change?

[Rwy in Sight]

We were discussing with a friend yesterday when an aircraft must change registration when is is leased/hired to an airline. For instance Alitalia has plenty of EI registered jet while other airlines who lease aircraft use their national registration. So the question is when the registration must change to the one of the operating airline.

[Capetonian]

I don't think there is a fixed rule, it depends on the type and term of the lease.

I'm pretty sure that with short term/ACMI/wet lease the registration won't change from that of the original.

[barkingmad]

The late great Iceland Express operated Astraeus aircraft all of which were G registration for a number of years up to 2011.

[4mastacker]

I've just been looking at some photos of several B737-Max, destined for different airlines, at Boeing's production plant. Most of them seem to be carrying the same registration number - N1786B. Why would that be? Would someone who knows about this sort of thing satisfy my curiosity? Ta muchly.

[Rwy in Sight]

I've just been looking at some photos of several B737-Max, destined for different airlines, at Boeing's production plant. Most of them seem to be carrying the same registration number - N1786B. Why would that be? Would someone who knows about this sort of thing satisfy my curiosity? Ta muchly.

Thanks to those who answered so far.

4ma I have something for you:

Every plane in the factory is marked with its registration number – N1786B – so that it is ready to fly when it is completed. But they are all the same registration, something that is rather unusual. Boeing can do this because the planes fly only once with that registration number. The destination of that first flight is the paint shop a few miles away where the fuselage is repainted into the customer’s livery and the new registration number is applied.

Found here

[4mastacker]

Thank you RiS. Everyday's a schoolday.

[G-CPTN]

Every plane in the factory is marked with its registration number – N1786B – so that it is ready to fly when it is completed. But they are all the same registration, something that is rather unusual. Boeing can do this because the planes fly only once with that registration number. The destination of that first flight is the paint shop a few miles away where the fuselage is repainted into the customer’s livery and the new registration number is applied.

I had an acquaintance when I was at Uni who built saloon cars for racing, each of which carried the same registration (they were also identical in appearance).

[Undried Plum]

Every plane in the factory is marked with its registration number – N1786B – so that it is ready to fly when it is completed. But they are all the same registration, something that is rather unusual. Boeing can do this because the planes fly only once with that registration number. The destination of that first flight is the paint shop a few miles away where the fuselage is repainted into the customer’s livery and the new registration number is applied.

Amazing!

It's forgery, in plain sight.

In the UK, registrations (of aircraft) cannot be recycled. Cars can, but not aircraft.

I think I wrote a post here about how we fiddled the registration of crop-spray Bell-47s and bamboozled the CAA into accepting what we were doing, but it was a bit naughty.

[G-CPTN]

I once rebuilt a car retaining only the chassis registration plate.

[4mastacker]

Hmmmmm. If one of the aircraft carrying that registration - N1786B - has an unfortunate accident on its transit flight to the paint shop and gets totalled, how does an FAA/NTSB accident investigation deal with the fact other aircraft are still flying with that registration and would that cause insurance implications if there's third party damage? Have Boeing been lucky so far that there hasn't been an accident?

[jimtherev]

I once rebuilt a car retaining only the chassis registration plate.

Did you inform the insurers you had modified the vehicle?

[G-CPTN]

I once rebuilt a car retaining only the chassis registration plate.

Did you inform the insurers you had modified the vehicle?

It was done as part of my occupation (experimental vehicle test engineer).
The original vehicle was worn out, having completed 'whole life' durability testing, but there was no budget for a replacement (capital project) so I used the maintenance and repair budget to obtain a fully trimmed body from production and fitted new running gear.