

Airport ABCs: An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes (1994) - vvviolet
http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html

======
chmars
ICAO airport codes in Switzerland:

L = Southern Europe

S = Switzerland

Z = Flight Information Region (FIR) Zürich with telex (back then) G = Flight
Information Region (FIR) Geneva with telex (back then) P = Flight Information
Region (FIR) Zürich without telex (back then) T = Flight Information Region
(FIR) Geneva without telex (back then) M = Military X = Heliport

Some examples:

LSZH = Zürich International Airport LSZX = Schänis Private Airfield (but with
telex back then!)

LSGG = Geneva International Airport LSGK = Saanen Private Airport

LSME = Emmen Military Airfield LSMM = Meiringen Military Airfield

LSPV = Wangen-Lachen Private Airfield LSPN = Triengen Private Airfield

LSTR = Montricher Private Airfield

LSXS = Schindellegi Private Heliport

An interesting case is Bâle-Mulhouse, a binational French-Swiss airport
located in France:

It's primary ICAO code is LFSB (F = France), however, for AFTN, there's also
LSZM.

AFTN = Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network.

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dingaling
> airports around the world are universally known by a unique three-letter
> code

The 'universality' of the IATA codes seems to be a common misunderstanding as
most passengers only fly to airports with scheduled services, therefore they
assume all air facilities have such codes.

Only 30% or so of airports and airfields have three -letter IATA codes; all
flight planning and ATC is conducted using the four-letter ICAO codes which
are _almost_ universal, though ZZZZ is eserved for exceptional cases.

Outside North America the ICAO scheme has some interesting local patterns
which permit a reasonable guess to be made as to the location and category of
airfield, something the IATA scheme cannot offer; it relies on rote
memorisation.

e.g. ICAO code EGAA. E is Western Europe, G is UK, A is the westernmost region
of the UK and A is the primary airport in thst region. Belfast International /
Aldergrove.

~~~
_jomo
IATA codes are also often used by ISPs in the domain names of some routers (as
can be seen in routers).

I found it actually quite surprising that this is common practice, yet I
couldn't find this documented anywhere.

~~~
xenophonf
The Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) used to give advice on naming
conventions, and server host names incorporating location information was one
of their examples. The pattern was LOC-OR-FUNC-##, or at least that's what we
ended up implementing. (I'm unable to find this in current versions of the MOF
documentation.) At the time I used IATA codes because I didn't want to come up
with my own comprehensive location encoding standard---and because I was
operating data centers in cities with international airports. Nowadays we
operate data centers or branch offices in some pretty remote spots, so we've
had to come up with our own three-letter codes anyway. I hate the
arbitrariness of it. Recently, I came across
[http://www.mnxsolutions.com/devops/a-proper-server-naming-
sc...](http://www.mnxsolutions.com/devops/a-proper-server-naming-scheme.html),
which suggests using the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations
(UN/LOCODE,
[http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/service/location.html](http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/service/location.html)).
It still isn't comprehensive enough for our purposes (we operate in some
_really_ remote spots), but I like it a lot better than the IATA codes.

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jarek
Canadian codes, after the universal Y, are an interesting mess with a lot of
non-intuitive codes. Here's a selection:

* YUL is Montreal airport in Dorval, with a mystery U. The somewhat more sensible YMX went to the flop Mirabel airport development

* YYZ is Toronto airport in Downsview. The city airport is YTZ. YTO is the metro code.

* YYG is Charlottetown

* YYJ is Victoria airport at the other end of the country

* YXE is Saskatoon

* YQR is Regina, it would be neat if the Q was for "Queen"

* YZF is Yellowknife

* YXY is Whitehorse

I do prefer the ICAO scheme.

~~~
iamshs
YEG - Edmonton

YMM - Fort Mac

YYC - Calgary

Just seems random naming to me.

~~~
jarek
Well one of the characters matching (E, M, C), arguably two for Fort _M_ c _M_
urray, is still better than YYZ matching none of the characters in any of the
names (Toronto, Lester B Pearson, Malton, Mississauga) of the country's
largest airport!

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mdesq
> Most of the "hard to decipher" identifiers become obvious if one knows the
> name of the airport rather than the city served...Grand Rapids, Michigan,
> has the _G_ e _r_ ald _R_. Ford airport (GRR).

I would have just assumed it was _Gr_ and _R_ apids.

~~~
33W
I'm quite confused on the accuracy of this article because of GRR. The article
was written in 1994, but according to the GRR history page
([http://www.grr.org/History.php#5](http://www.grr.org/History.php#5)), the
airport did not change its name until 1999. I believe the GRR is for GRand
Rapids, and question if this was actually written as is in 1994.

Edit: I see that the article is updated online. Still think that GRR is for
Grand Rapids though.

Edit2: Source Found! A NTSB report froma crash in December of 1998 cites a
weather reading from " Kent County International Airport (GRR)" (Source:
[http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001211...](http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001211X11530&ntsbno=CHI99LA055&akey=1)).
I move that this shows that the airport code was GRR prior to being re-named
Gerald R. Ford, and that GRR stands for Grand Rapids.

Edit3: Further a US DoT doc from April 1998, lists Kent County International
as GRR in Appendix D:
[http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr255/apndx.pdf](http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr255/apndx.pdf)

------
Stratoscope
What fun! Any traveler will enjoy this.

A few of them are mentioned in passing without explanation, like one of our
local airports:

> FAT is Fresno, California.

For anyone who is wondering, FAT stands for Fresno Air Terminal.

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IvyMike
Is the article from 1994? It contains the line "In 2007 the airport made the
best of their sucky cipher and started promoting the airport with the slogan
"FLY SUX.""

~~~
jzwinck
From the very first paragraph:

> This article was published in the journal of the Air Line Pilots
> Association, Air Line Pilot, in December of 1994. [...] I do keep this
> online version updated.

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Animats
The airport codes are now second level domains under ".aero". Most of them are
redirects set up by the .aero promoters, though.

~~~
pyre
Maybe just in the States. E.g. pdx.aero => portofportland.com while yyz.aero
=> Blank page with "under construction" in the title.

------
jgrahamc
It's always amused me that San Carlos airport (which is very, very close to
Oracle's HQ) has the FAA airport code SQL.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Carlos_Airport_(California)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Carlos_Airport_\(California\))

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peckrob
Another "need to know the name" one is Knoxville, Tennessee. The airport code
is TYS. Which is a head-scratcher unless you know the airport's name is McGhee
Tyson Airport.

Nashville is another one. BNA. The original name of the airport was Berry
field. Berry Nashville Airport.

------
gumby
I love the hidden substructure of trivia like this.

~~~
jzwinck
Then you will also enjoy the naming scheme for runways, e.g. 22L means 220-229
degrees magnetic heading, Left (runways with no parallel will have no trailing
letter).

~~~
reacweb
In airport LFPG, runways 27R and 26R are strictly parallel.

~~~
NullReference
You'll often get consecutively numbered runways that are parallel if there's
already a C/L/R on that heading.

For example, DFW has 17L, 17C, 17R, 18L and 18R all with the same magnetic
heading (176/356). Everything really is bigger in Texas. :)

------
adi2412
Curious to know how Dubai international airport got the code DXB. It doesn't
seem to make sense.

~~~
jzwinck
DUB is Dublin. I guess they could have used DBI....

------
Kartificial
Is it me or is this page really scrambled on Chrome 38/Mac OS X Yosemite? It
loads fine, but as soon as I scroll down, the background is black and the
letters get scrambled in blue

