Talk:IATA airport code

Initial comments

Should note that three-letter location codes in the United States are set by the FAA (and likely similarly in other countries by their regulatory agencies) and not by IATA. However, the code assignments are usually coordinated to reduce confusion (i.e., IATA codes are usually not duplicated by FAA codes, but not all three-letter FAA codes are also IATA codes). There are also four-letter codes (different from four-letter ICAO codes); the form of the location code is determined by its status and level of activity. See FAAO 7350.7K for more details. 18.24.0.120 03:16, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The codes do not seem to be alphanumeric, merely alphabetical. I can see why 1,0 would want to be avoided, but 2-9 could be used. 26^3 means there are only 17576 possible codes, so with 20000 airports there are more than 323 overlaps? Any examples of the codes that do overlap? --/Mat 15:52, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps CBG is one, in practice at least: in the US it's largely used to represent Cambridge, Minnesota although IATA seems only to have allocated it to Cambridge, England. See my note at Talk:List_of_airports:_C for examples. Marnanel 00:08, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

dead link

Burgundavia reverted my edit of the external link

http://www.world-airport-codes.com/

yesterday as well as today I tried to acess this URL, from different computers. I always got the following error message:

The requested URL could not be retrieved

---

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.world-airport-codes.com/

The following error was encountered:

Unable to determine IP address from host name for www.world-airport-codes.com The dnsserver returned:

Server Failure: The name server was unable to process this query. This means that:

The cache was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL. 
Check if the address is correct. 

Does this qualify for my statement on the wikipedia page that the link is dead??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abarenbo (talk • contribs) 07:50, 19 May 2005

• This seems like a local dns issue with you, as I can access the website fine. Burgundavia (✈ take a flight?) 10:21, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Agree, works fine for me. Bollar 15:56, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I found that the link in the reference section give a "Page Not Found. Sorry, the page you have requested cannot be found on www.iata.org" error message. The dead link is http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/aircraft_operations/coding/index.htm There is a similar link which does work: http://www.iata.org/whatwedo./aircraft_operations/codes/index.htm

The problem with the corrected link is that it provides Airline codes (Airline = companies operating aircraft.) For a list of the IATA airport codes the list can be obtained here: http://www.iata.org/ps/publications/ccd

Hopefully someone will sort this out as to what links should be cited in the main article.

CasR2207 (talk) 23:19, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Chicago O'Hare

The article on Airport ABC's incorrectly states that Chicago O'Hare (ORD) was originally named Orchard Field. It was originally named Orchard Depot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.218.136.185 (talk • contribs) 11:09, 27 May 2005

http://www.ipsn.org/ohare.html

Actually it was called Orchard Field (FlyChicago's Official Website). Dbinder 13:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Canadian airports

Question Can anyone explain how and why Canadian airports got stuck with the Y prefix? Steelium 3:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I was told they were based on some sort of railway code? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.90.95.165 (talk • contribs) 20:43, 7 August 2015

For some incomprehensible reason, the Diefenbaker government (1957-1963) agreed to have all Canadian airports start with Y. I don't know, maybe Dief's people wanted a single prefix letter for all of Canada and most of the Ys were unused?

Myself, I think IATA codes should be expanded to five characters by prefixing the two-character country code, e.g. YVR Vancouver would become CAYVR. This would eliminate duplication, and allow countries to choose IATA codes that more closely resemble the airport's identity, e.g. CALBP (or CATPA) for Lester B. Pearson Intl Airport in Toronto, CAPET (or CAMPT) for Montreal's Pierre Trudeau Intl Airport. It would also allow 17,576, (13,824 if I and O are not included) combinations per country, more than enough for all the airports, train stations, helicopter ports, etc. It would also provide standardized recognition of the country name. GBC 16:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

IATA codes are officially 5 character, but most only use the three character version. When I worked on airline flight operations software, the database and all software was designed to be 5 character aware and the plan, as explained at the time, was that IATA would roll out the 5 character version in the future. I guess we're still waiting.

By the same token, the airline codes are officially 3 character, but most only use two. Michael Daly 06:12, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

BTW - not all Canadian station codes begin with Y. There are a few obscure ones that have other letters, but I can't remember one offhand. Michael Daly 22:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

You know that it's an important Canadian airport if its IATA code makes no sense whatsoever. The busiest airports in Canada in order by passenger numbers:

1. Toronto - YYZ - (by far the busiest)
2. Vancouver - YVR
3. Calgary - YYC
4. Montreal - YUL
5. Edmonton - YEG
6. Ottawa - YOW

So naturally Canadians are proud of their totally incomprehensible airport codes and use them to confuse international travelers wherever possible. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 06:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

There are now two sections where Canadian airport codes are explained. Unfortunately they say subtly different things - one is "Yes, there's an airport at the weather station" and one is "Yes, there's a weather station on the railway". Noting that here since I don't have time to fix it - please could someone do some research and establish what the accurate explanation is? Dichohecho (talk) 13:06, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not at all believe the explanation "Y is for Yes, W is for Without" - the source is some arbitrary blog. I haven't been able to find corroborating evidence for any of the explanation offered in the article, so I have added a citation needed and an unreliable source tag.

I would be more likely to believe some explanation about radio call-signs or something. At least that would match up with ICAO codes (which are generally just IATA codes with an extra C at the beginning for most airports). But I wasn't able to find any corroborating evidence for that either. I spent 3 hours trying to find something haha... Hope someone can shed some properly-referenced light on this mystery.

--KitAFD (talk) 01:52, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Mississippi airport

I agree, we are a new airport in Mississippi (Tunica) and our FAA ICAO code changed to KUTA or just UTA in the states, we tried to use UTA for our IATA code and it is already taken (in Zimbabwe). We were forced to use UTM for IATA code beacuse it was already taken. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.14.10.22 (talk) 01:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

City codes covering multiple airports

Should the article say something about these codes (e.g. LON, PAR, NYC)? I'm not sure how many of them exist, but I recall from somewhere that IATA decided to stop issuing them several decades ago. Grover Snodd (talk) 15:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it should -- in fact I came here looking for information about this. --81.178.31.210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

The article mentions that, with good examples. Maybe a more comprehensive list is in order201.87.57.72 (talk) 02:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

See also the discussion on the talk page of the Airport code property (P238) -- Denis.arnaud (talk) 13:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

IATA codes used elsewhere?

Are IATA codes used by US or European bus lines? or passenger cruise ship lines? LanceBarber (talk) 04:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

IATA codes are also used in ticketing for major railway stations, like "XRJ" for Rome Termini station. Funandtrvl (talk) 18:23, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Q

Why the Q?

Entwhiz (talk) 18:44, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

TYS

In the weird codes paragraph, the TYS (Knoxville) is probably because of Tyson in its name. I am not deleting it though, please discuss whether it should be removed from the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiRigby (talk • contribs) 23:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I found out that most are named after individuals, so never mind. ~WikiRigby ^talk _sign! 23:06, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

List of city codes

Feature request: it would be nice if the list of airport codes http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/List_of_airports_by_IATA_code:_N had a sublist for "city codes" such as NYC and BER. I.E one code for multiple airports. 79.181.180.169 (talk) 14:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

US centric

This entry is quite US-centric. Would it make sense to divide into regions more clearly ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.90.95.165 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 7 August 2015

Not anymore, I guess - Toothswung (talk) 04:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Marketing usage

This is probably WP:OR without a source, but I'd like to see some discussion about how airports create marketing slogans around their IATA codes. The three examples I have in mind are all somewhat non-intuitive codes for their respective cities, which I suspect is not a coincidence—the marketing push could also help create mnemonics for remembering the codes. Orlando Sanford and Spokane use "Simpler, Faster, Better" and "Generating Economic Growth", respectively, in marketing. Norfolk uses "Take ORF" (which I've always assumed to be a play on "Take off"). --BDD (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that these are, essentially, nerdy jokes. And you will need to find somebody explaining those nerdy jokes in order to provide a source and avoid OR. And that will be tough. CapnZapp (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

methodology

The history and conventions section says the following:

Generally speaking, airport codes are named after the first three letters of the city in which it is located ... or a combination of the letters in its name.

It then proceeds to give "EWR for Newark" as an example of the latter. However, it then continues on by saying

For many reasons, some airport codes do not fit the normal scheme described above

But it gives "HNL for Honolulu" as an example. Now, could someone explain to me why Honolulu is in the second category while Newark is in the first? To me, they appear to have the exact same characteristics: three letters, in order, but not contiguous. Newark. Honolulu. What's the difference? CapnZapp (talk) 18:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

A "former name" is not the same thing as an "exonym".

A former name is not the same thing as an exonym - a name by which a place is known in one or more foreign languages, other than those of it's inhabitants. Some exonyms have fallen out of common use, to a greater extent than others have, but that still doesn't make it a "former name".Lathamibird (talk) 07:07, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Number of possible codes

A source said it could be given 17576 IATA possibles codes (26 * 26 * 26). It assumes there is only letters in _ and _ and _. Are we sure there is no figures possibles in these codes ? --Bouzinac (talk) 10:05, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Airports with multiple IATA codes?

Would it be interesting to add something about single airports that have multiple codes? The only example I know of is EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg (3 IATA codes: MLH, BSL, EAP) but I guess there are probably others. Sinkingpie (talk) 21:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Colloquial reference

I'm trying to avoid getting embroiled in an edit war. Regardless of the the ultimate call on how the page should look, I would appreciate if we could be a little less rude in edit summaries.

There seems to me to be no good reason to blank out the colloquial references section. @2600:1700:F56:FE10:C5EB:2475:7674:52D8's objection appears to be that these colloquial references are done everywhere, and not just in the United States. This is indeed true; it strikes me as an even stronger argument for keeping the section. The section does not say or even imply that this is a strictly US practice, especially now that I have edited the examples section so it no longer says the American ones are "most common", and I have cited those examples (If someone would like to cite an example from outside the US I would welcome that; I couldn't find anything readily). AntiDionysius (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2023 (UTC)