-- Similarly, Air India and Indian Airlines are as different from one another as American and America West.

-- There is no such thing as China Air.

-- There is no such thing as British Air. British Airways is what you mean. If you can't remember, impress your travel agent by calling it "BA," as savvy fliers like to say.

-- Do not, under any circumstances, call it BOAC, as certain retirees and gray-haired diplomats are still prone to do. British Overseas Airways Corporation (to others it was Better Off As Cargo) was merged away more than 30 years ago.

-- This "Air" business is fairly notorious, applied generically and incorrectly in a host of places. Virgin Air? You'll also find it affixed to Alaska, Singapore, Thai, and even Lufthansa. The latter translates loosely into "Airline Air."

-- Nippon Air? Never heard of it. All Nippon Airways is another story.

-- Juxtaposition of the -ways and -lines suffixes is equally common and equally egregious. Northwest Airways, anyone? US Airlines?

-- Notice that's Northwest, not "Northwestern." Nuts you think, but I once knew a girl who used this all the time. It was almost forgivable had she not been from Minneapolis, which is Northwest's home city.

-- Beware of redundancies when tempted to tack on any kind of Air, Airways, or Airlines suffix, as it might already be there. SAS needs nothing of the sort, lest it become Scandinavian Airlines System Airways.

-- Avianca, Lacsa, TACA, Qantas, Tarom, and even Varig, all pronounced phonetically as they appear, belong to the acronym club with an inherent "airline," though it's hit or miss with respect to capitalization. Tarom, for instance, is an amalgam of Tranporturile Aeriene Romane.

-- There is no "u" in Qantas. It's taken care of by the Queensland part of Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, as it was named more than 80 years ago.

-- KLM? Why that's Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, or "Royal Dutch Airlines." But you knew that. Just don't say KLM Air.

-- Then again, sometimes an abbreviation isn't an abbreviation. ATA used to be American Trans Air. Now, instead, it's ATA Airlines. Not redundant, they tell us, because the letters no longer stand for anything. They're just... ATA. Want to spiff up your image without sacrificing recognition? Easy, invent a nonsense term. And they say marketing ain't what it used to be.

-- Down in Trinidad, we once had BWIA, or British West Indian Airways. Today it's BWIA West Indies Airways. All together now: British West Indian Airways West Indies Airways. What a sweet ring. Except they too have taken the ATA model and negated the caps.

-- When in doubt, leave it out. Emirates is Emirates. Ditto for Mexicana and several others.

-- Lufthansa is Lufthansa. Sort of. Officially it's Deutsche Lufthansa, which means, basically, "German Airlines." On the emblem of a Lufthansa captain's hat it says "DLH" which is taken from the full German name. It's also the company's ICAO identifier.

-- You cannot fly to Rome on Air Italia or Alitalian. It's Alitalia.

-- Don't put an "n" where none belongs. It's not Malaysian Airlines, it's Malaysia Airlines. And you'll fly to Spain on Iberia, not Iberian. Garudan Indonesia? How about Garuda Indonesian? Nope, it's Garuda Indonesia.

-- What's a Garuda? It's a Hindu deity. (Yes most Indonesians are Muslim, but stone-carved Garudas aplenty will stare down at you from temples on the Hindu island of Bali.)

-- All Airbuses are not created equal. Many like to think of "the Airbus" as a single model, when in fact, like the Boeing line, it's a whole family of jets from A300 through A340. No dashes. There is no A-340, only an A340.

-- Whether you call it a "Seven-Forty-Seven" or a "Seven-Four-Seven" is pretty much up to you. There's widespread preference for the former, but both are acceptable. When I phoned Boeing to ask of the rulebook opinion, the woman hung up on me.

-- As you've probably read, the Concorde is being retired. More properly, Concorde is being retired. The plane's makers have always insisted the article extraneous. In a haughty Oxford accent you might hear, "We'll be arriving via Concorde at noon." If the plane weren't so svelte and cool I'd be tempted to declare this the most pretentious bit of nonsense in the history of aviation. Thems the rules, but most of the time I go ahead and use the the.

-- The The? Does anyone remember that dreadful song "Uncertain Smile" from c. 1983? I once had the extended version on 12-inch 45.

-- Once you've figured out which airline and plane you're on, check your ticket to see how you're getting there. Be warned, direct flights are not the same as nonstop flights. Nonstops are nonstop. A direct flight, however, may stop. Direct only means there is no change of flight number or swap of aircraft. You can fly "direct" from New York to Mumbai, India, on Delta, but you'll be stopping for fuel and servicing in Paris (it used to be Frankfurt, an old Pan Am hand-me-down). The expressions are used somewhat interchangeably, but be careful. Nonstop is always direct, but direct isn't? you get the idea.

All right. So, as you can see, it's not all your fault, and even the Boston Globe deserves a break. The airlines have made this much, much harder than it needs to be.

And I'm not helping.

Speaking of names, this has been a busy week here at Ask the Pilot. Early next week, the editors will be getting their hands on that long awaited manuscript of mine -- an expanded and updated compilation of 60 or so articles from the Salon archives. If you're a regular of these pages, you already know the book will have everything: devilish wit, indulgent anecdotes, and page after page of esoteric nonsense (see above). I'll let you know when you can place those advance orders on Amazon.

What it doesn't have is a title. "Ask the Pilot" is an option I can't stand, but others seem to find it agreeable. My own favorite, "Half the Fun," (as in getting there is?), is on the verge of being shot down.

That's where you come in. If you can do so without getting smart, send along any suggestions for a good, clever title. I'd love to hear what you think of the two existing ideas, or perhaps you've got a better one. I'll forward the input to the publishers, and if you come up with a winner you'll get a free copy and an inscription.

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