Originally Posted by
West Coast
It's not the same.
Yep, not the same system. We have "special" airports, and regular airports. I know that at my Part 121 carrier, (and at my previous Part 121 carrier) to go to a "special" airport we have to have qualified either by reviewing pictures and/or videos, or we need to have operated into there recently. For airports which aren't designated "special", no qualification or training is required.
Training and qualification may have been required for every single airport at TWA, but it's not generally true that it's a Part 121 requirement.
We also have qualifications to go destinations with less than 80% runways, And a multi-tiered system of qualification depending on how short the runway is and what the other challenges are there, but that a whole different ball of wax.