Why do airports have two codes?

Cities with multiple commercial airports. In large metropolitan areas, airport codes are often named after the airport itself instead of the city it serves, while another code is reserved which refers to the city itself which can be used to search for flights to any of its airports.



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Every airport in the world is given a three-letter code from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and a four-letter code from International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

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The states of Hawaii and Alaska append the letter “P” to indicate that they are in the ICAO pacific region. Anchorage is PANC in the ICAO system and Honolulu is PHNL.

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According to Airfarewatchdog, in the 1930s, it was important to know whether or not an airport had a weather/radio station located on its premises, for safety and landing reasons. If it did, the letter Y for yes was added in front of the existing radio call sign.

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Codes in the range QAA–QNZ are reserved for aeronautical use; QOA–QQZ for maritime use and QRA–QUZ for all services. Q has no official meaning, but it is sometimes assigned a word with mnemonic value, such as Queen for example in QFE: Queen's field elevation, or Query, Question, reQuest.

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ORD – Chicago O'Hare “ORD” is a nod to the airfield's history, which started its life as Orchard Field Airport (OrchaRD) in 1945, at the site where Douglas Corporation had a wartime aircraft assembly plant.

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The airport code is BNA, which stands for Berry Field Nashville in honor of Col. Harry S. Berry, administrator of the original airport project in the 1930s. The Nashville International Airport is located at One Terminal Drive, Nashville, TN 37214 - 8 miles east of downtown Nashville.

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the letter ''K'' was simply assigned to the contiguous US by ICAO, in order to have a system with unique identifiers for world-wide use, instead of trying to adapt local system to match. The IATA codes had been in use already and possible duplicates could not be excluded.

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Saudi Arabia's King Fahr International Airport covered by far the largest land area, more than ten times the size of the third biggest airport in the ranking, Dallas/Fort Worth International in the United States.

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There are two entities responsible for allocating codes to airports. The first one is the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which assigns four-letter codes to public and private airports.

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The X in LAX
With the rapid growth in the aviation industry, in 1947, the identifiers expanded to three letters and LA received an extra letter to become LAX. The letter X does not otherwise have any specific meaning in this identifier.

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Every airport has its code and EWR is the code of Newark Liberty International Airport. Three-letter codes are assigned by the International Airport Association as each airport's ID. In this case, EWR comprises the three letters from Newark since all codes that start with N are used by the Navy.

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Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) is one of the world's largest airports, ranking second globally in passenger numbers and third in aircraft movements. DFW was built between 1967 and 1973 and became operational on January 13, 1974, with American Airlines' first commercial flight.

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Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport remains the busiest airport in the world with 5.2 million seats in September 2023. The composition of the Global Top 10 Busiest Airports is also the same as last month but there are a few changes to the rankings.

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ICAO code consists of 4 letters. Certain classifications among countries and regions are used in creating these codes. The first letter stands for the region in which the airport is located, the second is for the country. The other two letters are generally given in order.

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Since that time, Gerald Ford (Grand Rapids, Michigan), Bill and Hillary Clinton (Little Rock, Arkansas), Theodore Roosevelt (Dickinson, North Dakota), Ronald Reagan (Arlington, Virginia) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (Wichita, Kansas) all have had airports named after them.

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An IATA airport code, also known as an IATA location identifier, IATA station code, or simply a location identifier, is a three-letter geocode designating many airports and metropolitan areas around the world, defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

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