The airport codes - background
 

Found this article that provided some interesting background concerning the TLC (three letter codes) used by IATA. Even though many of you use the FLC's.

Does anybody have a good set of translations from one to the other ???:ugh:

Try this site: http://www.airlinecodes.co.uk/, Airport Codes on the top.

Cheers

THX
 

Much obliged:hmm:

Interesting article, I always wondered how Toronto got be "YYZ" (check out the RUSH song one day guys...). I spent 2 years flying into "CGK" thinking why isn't this JKT or something before I cottoned on to the fact that it is at an area known as Cengkareng!

Interesting. One thing I've wondered: how did the US get 'K' as the ICAO prefix? 'C' for Canada makes sense, 'M' for Mexico... why 'K'?

K after Kittyhawk, site of the Wright Brothers' first flight.

Also, the 'N' after North Carolina, US state of the first flight.

cl12pv2s

I suppose we should be grateful that there's been no Trademark/Copyright disputes over Royal Flight callsigns.

Gofer,

I have an Excel table listing ICAO Codes, IATA Codes and airport name. It can be searched or sorted by any of those categories to get the other two.

I got it with charge calculation software from from the Central Route Charges Office (Eurocontrol) website, some years ago. There may be an up-to-date version there now.

It has 7781 entries, not all with both ICAO and IATA codes, of course.

PM if you want a copy.

Thanks for the answer!

K and N (and part of the As) are the radio call-sign blocks assigned to the USA. Canada has part of the C block (and others). Aircraft registration prefixes come from these call-sign blocks.

This might explain the K prefix for US airports and C for Canada, but fails completely elsewhere.