Air carrier landing mdw was informed by ATC that company aircraft awaiting departure had the exact s...

Narrative:

On short final to runway 4R into mdw; tower cleared us to land. They then asked us to confirm our call sign. We did. They then asked the company aircraft holding short to confirm their call sign. They had the exact same call sign. Both of us were company X. After landing; the ground controller asked us to contact company about the confusion. After shutdown I called our dispatcher. Dispatch said the other aircraft should have been given a different call sign since they were a stubbed flight. Operations was very busy trying to make the schedule work with a large number of aircraft sidelined for maintenance. This somehow slipped through. I'm concerned that our automation didn't catch this at the dispatch level; and that the air traffic control system accepted it. The fact that it was day VMC with light traffic into mdw made this a non-event. If it had been night IMC; with more traffic; we could have had 2 aircraft on the same runway. Dispatch consoles shouldn't be able to give 2 different aircraft the same call sign while one is still off the gate. I feel this is a technical threat more than any individual.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier landing MDW was informed by ATC that company aircraft awaiting departure had the exact same call sign (flight number); reporter was asked by ATC to question company Dispatch.

Narrative: On short final to Runway 4R into MDW; Tower cleared us to land. They then asked us to confirm our call sign. We did. They then asked the Company Aircraft holding short to confirm their call sign. They had the exact same call sign. Both of us were Company X. After landing; the Ground Controller asked us to contact Company about the confusion. After shutdown I called our Dispatcher. Dispatch said the other aircraft should have been given a different call sign since they were a stubbed flight. Operations was very busy trying to make the schedule work with a large number of aircraft sidelined for maintenance. This somehow slipped through. I'm concerned that our automation didn't catch this at the Dispatch level; and that the Air Traffic Control system accepted it. The fact that it was day VMC with light traffic into MDW made this a non-event. If it had been night IMC; with more traffic; we could have had 2 aircraft on the same runway. Dispatch consoles shouldn't be able to give 2 different aircraft the same call sign while one is still off the gate. I feel this is a technical threat more than any individual.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	849047
Time
Date	200908
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	MDW.Airport
State Reference	IL
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Landing
Flight Plan	IFR
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 247 Flight Crew Type 247
Person 2
Function	First Officer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 298
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown

Air carrier landing mdw was informed by ATC that company aircraft awaiting departure had the exact same call sign (flight number); reporter was asked by ATC to question company dispatch.