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I think that it's pretty cheezy. I get enough pretend airline time in my dorky uniform. Controllers usually shorten your call sign on their own after the first time you contact them anyway.
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Think what you want. Why do the airlines do it? Probably partly because they have a lot of similar tail numbers. FlightSafety does not, so they do not need them (incidentally, neither does KSU, I was just using them as an example).
Every airplane Riddle has ends in ER. With 100-some-odd airplanes, they cannot shorten tail numbers in the traditional way. If they did, there could be several 4ER's, 3ER's, 5ER's, etc. at any given time on frequency. Call signs making more sense now?