British G- registrations: G-INFO, personalized registrations and special cases

On Myrtle Avenue at Heathrow, a BA A319 with G-EUPJ floats in, shortly after a Virgin aircraft with G-V… on the fuselage. In Manchester, Concorde G-BOAC stands behind glass, and in Old Warden a vintage aircraft with a registration from the 1920s rolls out to take off. All carry the same prefix, and yet the four letters behind it say very different things. If you want to read British G- registrations, you don’t need a weight table like in Germany or Austria, but a feel for sequence, personalized registrations and history – and the online register G-INFO. This guide explains both.

G- registrations: the short answer

A British registration consists of the nationality mark G, a hyphen and a group of four capital letters. This applies to every civil aircraft on the register, whether glider, helicopter, balloon or widebody jet. Numeric registrations for gliders or ultralights as in Austria don’t exist in the regular British system.

The register is maintained by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The legal basis is the Air Navigation Order 2016: its articles 24 to 32 govern registration and marking, and Schedule 4 specifies what the marks on the aircraft must look like. The CAA summarizes the requirements in its publication CAP 523. The international basics – one registration per aircraft, registration in only one state – are explained in the overview understanding aircraft registrations.

The big difference: no class letters

If you come from Germany, you’re used to reading the class from the first letter: D-A for large jets, D-E for light single-engine aircraft, D-H for helicopters. How that works in detail is shown in the article on German registrations and weight classes, the Austrian counterpart is found under OE registrations, the Swiss one under HB registrations.

The British system works differently. The CAA basically assigns registrations in sequence. According to the CAA, 75 registrations from the running series are available for new registrations at any given time. A G-B… therefore doesn’t tell you “helicopter” or “airliner,” but roughly: this registration was issued when the series was at about B. A Cessna and a Jumbo can carry directly adjacent registrations.

Personalized registrations: why airlines carry meaningful letters

The second pillar is the so-called out-of-sequence registrations. Since the 1970s, an owner can apply for any free combination of four letters, as long as it isn’t blocked. According to the CAA, a British-registered aircraft may carry a registration from the running series – or any number of personalized registrations in succession.

That costs extra. The CAA’s fee overview lists (as of October 2026) £98 for registration or re-registration for aircraft up to 15,000 kilograms and £196 above that; for a personalized registration, £428 is added. If you can’t register an aircraft yet, you may reserve a personalized registration for six months and extend the reservation.

For spotters, this is the reason why British fleets so often “speak”:

• Virgin Atlantic traditionally uses G-V…, starting with the first Boeing 747 G-VIRG in 1984. Many registrations form a word or an allusion – G-VIRG itself is the best-known example. More on the page about Virgin Atlantic.
• easyJet uses blocks like G-EZ… for the British company and G-UZ… on many neo aircraft. The continental fleet, by contrast, flies with OE- or HB- registrations – see easyJet.
• British Airways bundles fleet families in separate blocks, such as G-EU… for Airbus narrowbody jets. The A319 G-EUPJ has carried the historic design of BEA since the 100th anniversary in 2019. The fleet is presented on the page about British Airways.

Such blocks are a habit, not a rule. So never rely blindly on the letters for the type, but check it on the aircraft or in G-INFO.

Blocked combinations and the once-only rule

The choice isn’t entirely free. The CAA names several blocks in its guidelines:

Rule	What is blocked	Background
Distress signals	PAN, SOS, TTT, XXX in the first or last three letters	no confusion with distress and urgency signals under ICAO Annex 7
Q code	any registration with Q	Q groups are in use in radio traffic
Special case	the letter sequence ZC anywhere	according to the CAA, generally not issued
Decency	offensive combinations	discretion of the registry
History	all registrations ever issued	no confusion between aircraft

The last row is the most important for collectors. A British registration that was once on an aircraft is never given to another aircraft. An aircraft can carry several registrations over its life, but a registration always belongs to only one airframe. If an aircraft returns to the register, it may usually take one of its former registrations again. Austria, by contrast, allows reissue after a three-year blocking period.

For your logbook, that means: a G- registration is unambiguous in the British register. A few historic aircraft, by the way, still carry Q registrations from the time before the block – such finds are real rarities. How aircraft change their registration when the owner changes is described in the article on re-registrations.

A look back: from K-100 to G-AAAA

British registration history is quickly told, but full of traces you can still see today:

How alive this history is is shown by the Shuttleworth Collection in Old Warden. Its 1909 Blériot XI carries the early registration G-AANG and is considered one of the oldest airworthy aircraft in the world. At airshows at the field in Old Warden, you have good chances of seeing registrations from the early days of the G-AA series live.

Gliders, microlights and balloons

Because there are no class letters, separate patterns have developed for light aircraft:

• Gliders: For a long time, British gliders ran only on the register of the British Gliding Association (BGA) with numbers and a three-letter code, the trigraph. Since 2008, gliders have been registered on the G- register with few exceptions. According to the CAA, the trigraph by default becomes the last three letters of the registration: the trigraph PXL becomes G-CPXL or, if that is taken, G-DPXL. On the vertical stabilizer, you often also see large BGA competition IDs.
• Microlights: From 1981 to 1998, most ultralights ended up in blocks starting at G-M…. According to the CAA, this separate series has been abolished; microlights today get registrations from the normal series or personalized registrations. A G-M… is thus usually a hint of an older ultralight, but not proof.
• Small balloons: According to the CAA, balloons with minimal lift are restricted to the block G-FYAA to G-FYZZ – one of the few real class rules in the system.

G-INFO: the register for spotters

The strongest tool for British registrations is G-INFO, the CAA’s public database. By its own account, it contains the records of aircraft registered in the United Kingdom; according to the CAA, the register comprises over 18,000 aircraft. The online search is freely accessible and works via several fields. How register lookups work in other countries is shown in the article looking up aircraft registers.

Search field	What you enter	Spotter benefit
Registration	the registration, e.g. EUPJ	type, serial number and owner for a sighting
Serial no.	construction number	an airframe’s history, also under other registrations
Aircraft type / ICAO type designator	e.g. A321 or an exact ICAO code	all British aircraft of a type for your wish list
Registered owner	name of the owner	fleets of airlines, companies, clubs or collections
ICAO 24 bit address (hex)	six-digit hex code	the registration for a signal on the flight tracker

One detail you should know: the search by registration returns registered and deleted aircraft alike, all other fields show deleted entries only if you tick the box “Include de-registered aircraft.” You can also search by military serial – handy for warbirds.

The hex search bridges to tracking: if you only see a code on the flight tracker, you find the matching aircraft in G-INFO. How the address is built and why it is tied to the country of registration is explained in the article on the ICAO 24-bit address. How to track an aircraft live afterward is covered under tracking an aircraft by registration.

Where the registration must be

The Air Navigation Order 2016 specifies in Schedule 4 exactly what the marks look like. The key points for reading them at the fence:

• Under the left wing: On fixed-wing aircraft, the registration is on the underside of the left wing, at least 50 centimeters high, with the top of the letters toward the wing leading edge.
• Fuselage or vertical stabilizer: It is also on both sides of the fuselage between wing and horizontal stabilizer or on the vertical stabilizer, at least 30 centimeters high. On the tail, a margin of at least five centimeters stays free.
• Helicopters: If there isn’t enough room on the side of the fuselage for 30 centimeters, the registration must additionally be under the fuselage.
• Balloons and airships: Two opposite positions, at least 50 centimeters high.
• Design: Latin capital letters, all in one color, clearly contrasting and without decoration. Outlines or shadows around the letters count as impermissible ornament under CAP 523.

On small vertical stabilizers, the registration may be on two lines, for example as “G-A” above “BCD.” In addition, every aircraft must carry a fireproof metal plate with the registration. You’ll find a cross-country comparison of the rules in the article where the registration must be on the aircraft, and tips for hard-to-read registrations under determining an unreadable registration.

Special cases you’ll meet while spotting

Warbirds without a visible G

The CAA knows two narrowly defined exemptions from the marking requirement: for filming and for historically correct military liveries. For the latter, the owner needs the consent of the British Ministry of Defence or the respective foreign government. That’s why at airshows in Duxford or at the Imperial War Museum Duxford, you see Spitfires and Hurricanes with RAF serials instead of G- registrations on the fuselage. They are civil-registered anyway – in G-INFO you find them via type or owner, often also via the search field for military serials.

Test registration G-1-1

For test and ferry flights without a full certificate of airworthiness, Britain has so-called B-Class registrations. Since 1948, every manufacturer gets a number, followed by a running number, such as G-2-1. These registrations show up on factory and delivery flights and are correspondingly rare. How other countries handle this is described in the article on manufacturers’ test registrations.

Concorde G-BOA…

The seven British Airways examples of Concorde ran as G-BOAA to G-BOAG. One of them, G-BOAC, stands today at the Runway Visitor Park at Manchester Airport, G-BOAF at Aerospace Bristol. For a joint service with the US airline Braniff, the Concordes temporarily received combined registrations, with G-BOAC running as G-N81AC. The whole story is told in the article on Concorde.

Not everything British carries G-

The Crown Dependencies keep their own registers: the Isle of Man issues registrations with M-, Guernsey with 2-. British overseas territories such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands use prefixes from the VP- and VQ- range. Business jets and leased aircraft in particular show up with such registrations at British airports. Why that is so is explained in the article on offshore registrations, and the guide to country codes summarizes the most important prefixes.

Classifying a G- registration in four steps

Where to collect G- registrations best

For airline fleets, London Heathrow Airport is the first address. At Myrtle Avenue or in Hatton Cross, you read registrations by the minute, and the complete overview is in the plane spotting guide for Heathrow. In the north, Manchester Airport is worthwhile with the spotter guide to Manchester. There, besides the network airlines, you also meet leisure airlines like Jet2 and TUI Airways with G- registrations. For historic registrations, Old Warden, Duxford and the Royal International Air Tattoo are the best addresses.

Before you stand at the fence in Britain with camera and notebook, read the article spotting in the UK. And if reading registrations turns into a passion for collecting, collecting registrations shows how to build your system.

Conclusion

British registrations follow a different logic from the German or Austrian ones. After G- always come four letters, issued in a series running since 1928 or as personalized registrations for a fee. There is no class table, but there is the rule that every registration is issued only once. With G-INFO, you also have a register you can search freely by registration, type, owner or hex code. If you combine both, you can classify every sighting in Britain with confidence.