Skimming through random aircraft photos on airliners.net or jetphotos.com, it is not uncommon to pick out aircraft with unusual sets of numbers and letters appended to the model type.
What I mean by this is that, while we are accustomed to seeing aircraft being listed as Boeing 737-800 or Boeing 767-300(ER) on many occassions you'll see these same aircraft been listed as Boeing 737-860, Boeing 767-36N/ER.
Many jet aircraft have these variations in their series number*, and no, this does not mean that the aircraft has some hidden missile compartment in its belly or camouflage capabilities or any special advantage over similar aircraft in that family of aircraft.
These are simply customer codes that identify the client/ customer to whom that aircraft is registered to. The customer in this case could be an airline, charter company, aircraft leasing company, or even governments.
It is also good to note that this is a system created by Boeing. Airbus uses an entirely different system.
*( A series number is basically a variant of a particular family of aircraft, for example, in the Boeing 737 family, the following series exist, -100, -200, -300, -400, -500, -600, -700, -800 and -900. Differences between each of the series show up in parameters such as length, overall weight, engine power output, total passengers that can be carried, among others).
Customer codes appear as sets of numbers (B747-436) , alphanumeric form ( B777-3U3(ER)or sets of letters (B777-3DE(ER).
In the case where an aircraft belonging to one airline is leased for a period to another airline, the customer code does not change to suit the new airline.
A good example is the Kenya Airways Boeing 777-300(ER) aircraft that were leased to Turkish Airlines. These aircraft were designated as B777-3U8(ER) (U8 being the customer code for KQ) but upon transfer to Turkish, they were not designated as B777-3F2(ER); F2 being the customer code for Turkish airlines.
Below are some examples of customer codes and the respective clients/customers.
CODE CUSTOMER AIRCRAFT
-28 Air France B777-328(ER)
-B5 Korean Air B737-8B5
-AL Singapore Aircraft Leasing Services B777-3AL(ER)
-60 Ethiopian Airlines B737-860
You can check out Wikipedia's comprehensive list of all these codes.
It is also worth noting that Boeing has slowly begun discontinuing the use of customer codes especially with the introduction of the Dreamliner series (these are listed as B787-8, B787-9 and B787-10 without any customer code). Similarly, the MAX family is listed as B737MAX7 B737MAX8, B737MAX9 and B737MAX10 without any customer code designation.
They are doing this to make it simpler to designate their aircraft.
Let's see how his will pan out for them.
On a side note, other letters are sometimes used to denote the type of aircraft and in no way represent any customer. So for instance you'll see something like Boeing 737-800(WL) 'WL' in this case means that this aircraft has winglets. Another example would be in the 777 family where you'll see the aircraft being denoted as B77L which is the identifier for the B777-200LR (Long Range) or B77W which represents the B777-300ER (Extended Range)
For Airbus as I mentioned before, they use a whole other system for designating their aircraft.
Take Airbus A321-231 for example. Each of the numbers after the hyphen represents something unique. The '2' is the series number ie -200 series, the '3' is the engine manufacturer code and the '1' is the engine version number.
Below are the engine manufacturer codes for Airbus
Airbus Engine Code Engine Manufacturer
0 General Electric (GE)
1 CFM International (GE/SNECMA- Safrean)
2 Pratt&Whitney (P&W)
3 International Aero Engines
4 Rolls-Royce
5 CFM International (CFM LEAP-1A for A320NEO Family)
6 Engine Alliance (GE and P&W)
7 Pratt& Whitney (PW1100G for A320NEO Family)
In the above example you can describe the aircraft saying that it is an Airbus A321, 200 series, powered by International Aero Engines.
And just like with Boeing, there are other letters usually appended to the aircraft. These could indicate modifications or added capabilities to the aircraft.
For instance
C- Combi version (A340-300C) R-Long range model (A300-600R)
F- Freighter model(A330-200F) X- Enhanced model (A340-313X)
N- New engine option (neo) (A320NEO) M- Military (Airbus A400M)
MRTT- Multi Role Tanker Transport (A330MRTT)
With that said and done, I'd like for you guys to describe these aircraft for me:
B777-3U3(ER)
Airbus A321-271NX
B737-832(WL)
Airbus A330-202
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