Air India's 'November Oscar Whiskey' Recruitment Ad Goes Viral, Here's What it Means

Air India’s creative job advertisement is getting the attention it intended to get on the Internet. The ad reads “November, Oscar, Whiskey Hotel, India, Romeo, India, November, Golf. If you understand this, come meet us at the venues below” along with a list of venues. To the uninitiated, it might seem like gibberish, but to those familiar with the aviation industry, the meaning reveals itself pretty squarely. The ad simply means “now hiring”.

Wondering how we got there? The words November, Oscar, Whiskey, Hotel, India, Romeo, India, November, Golf are part of the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (ICAO), very commonly used by pilots and others in the aviation and travel industry. It assigns all the 26 letters of the regular alphabet a separate word starting with that alphabet. The purpose of this is to clarify communication via telephone or radio, or when a spelled-out message includes both letters and numbers.

Air India testing out candidates right off the bat amused Twitter users. “Whiskey Echo Lima Lima-Papa Lima Alpha Yankee Echo Delta, Alpha India Romeo India November Delta India Alpha! Eye-catchy recruitment ad by Air India using the ICAO phonetic alphabet. In a way, it’s also interactive because it makes you work out what the headline means,” a Twitter user wrote.

That’s pretty Charlie Oscar Oscar Lima, right?

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