Teesside MME for MMiddlEsborough, the nearest big city ?

IAD (Dulles) = International Airport Dulles methinks.

Check 6

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Kick the tires, light the fires, first off is lead, brief on guard.

This is a great little site where you can find just about any ICAO/IATA code: http://www.ar-group.com/icaoiata.htm From there, you can also do some instant time and distance calculations - very useful! :) :) :)

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:) Happiness is a warm L1011 :)

Wycombe
AGP = Agripina (Roman name for Malaga)

HugMonster
JFK was IDL

CDG always so, Roissy is the closest town so often used iso CDG (bit like FCO which is officially Leonardo da Vinci)

IAD is a special case that was explained in an Airways magazine article on the subject some years ago. Originally (in 1962) Dulles was DIA (Dulles Intl AP) but it was found that controllers sometimes wrote DCA on the flight progress strips in error (for National Airport). After a few flights had been vectored to the wrong airport, it was changed to IAD.

Does someone knows why Amsterdam Schipol has 2 official IATA codes: AMS and SPL ???

Also, during the handover from Hong Kong KaiTak to the new airport, what were the ICAO codes in use?. I believe that both airports were operating simultanaeously for some days and obviously not both using HKG ?!

The structure of the AFTN used to dictate entirely the ICAO codes used here in Oz, you even had to ensure you put them in the right order to avoid multiple delivery to some stations. Everything going through Perth had to start with AP, APPE for Pearce, APGN for Geraldton etc.

With the concentration of all the com centres to Brisbane and changing to "Y" for our region code they could harmonise the IATA/ICAO codes a bit. YPEA for Pearce, YGEL for Geraldton. Course they lost interest in this process and haven't fixed any others up, for no good reason I can think of.

With modern com tecnology it could be done easy.

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"Station calling Centre, grow a head..."

OO-AOG
I believe its Amsterdam Schipol airport, thats why the SPL. Anyone cares to add to this?

Smurfy

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Approaching Minimums...Minimums, Minimums...

[This message has been edited by Smurfjet (edited 23 August 2000).]

In the same vein....

Filton, UK - FZO (eh? all that was left?)

Dubai (why DXB? Sounds like a bomb scare warning to me)

Nagano - QNG (Obvious - not!)

Also - didn't someone other than Orlando have MCO once?

I think, as regards the HKG question, that there WAS NO parallel ops period - I thought they decamped from KT to CLK over one night... but I could be wrong...

apioca,

Regarding your inquiry on the "meaning" of Canadian airports codes, here's a brief explanation. Originally, in the 1930's, Canada used two letters for identification of a weather reporting station. Additionally, preceding the 2-letter code, was placed a Y (meaning "yes") where the reporting station was co-located with an airport, a W (meaning "without") where the reporting station was not co-located with an airport and U where the reporting station was co-located with an NDB. An X was used if the last 2 letters of the code had already been taken by another Canadian ident, and a Z was used if the locator could be confused with a US three letter ident. The ICAO names are in a 4 letter format starting with a C for Canadian airports.

If it may interest you the following link provides an ICAO/IATA decoder for airports and cities: http://www.ar-group.com/icaoiata.htm

Hope it answers your question.

I didn't realise that all American airports used both codes, ie. LAX or KLAX. Damn good idea! Why can't every other country use this? How much easier would THAT be?
Zulu, you make it sound almost logical.
But, er, let me see.
EG = Europe, Great Britain,
ED = Europe, Germany
LF = Europe, France

Right, so why is France not EF? How can "LF = Europe, France?

And you would think it would be EG = Europe, Germany.

Still, I am sure you see a logic in there somewhere (perhaps this is why ATCers and pilots never see things the same way?!!!)

Both systems have their own little mysteries.

Basle for example has MLH for the Swiss side of the airfield and BSL for the French.

Also whilst we are on the subject there are a lots of new pilots that use the DME/NDB or localiser code for an airfield. I've seen many a Tech Log with the letters SND (Southend), BEL(Belfast), BRI (Bristol).

I agree do like the US system, why make things more difficult than they need to be.

OO-AOG
In the airline I first used to work for, we had almost always two three letter codes, e.g. LHR & LON. The COMAIL for the town office would be addressed to LON & LHR served the airport

Whoopwhoop

I agree that LON is used as a general code for LHR/LCY/LGW/STN, TYO for HND/NRT, NYC for JFK/LGA/EWR or PAR for CDG/ORY/LBG but these IATA 'metropolitan' codes are only used for Comail or by travel agents and are not official airport codes.

Schipol has 2 different IATA codes, AMS and SPL. I don't understand why because there is only 1 airport deserving Amsterdam, no confusion possible.

OO-AOG
Feel free to blame the Big Airline types that do their thing or not at all.........
Real aviation staff playing at the game could not even hope to know SPL (aaaaaaagh it's real name) with Amsterdam......Even Bad Attitude's new handling agent has AMS.... as it's SITA address.
As hinted at earlier, it is a Res based city code.......
Gotta go gotta fly LON-PAR, now is that
STN-BVA, LHR-CDG or LGW-ORY, still at least for all LON airports the long stay carpark is the M25..................

[This message has been edited by boredcounter (edited 13 October 2000).]

YS,

Basel Mulhouse is the full name of the airport - hence the split BSL/MLH. I guess it's necessary to distinguish flghts originating (notionally) from inside and outwith the EU?

Does the same apply at GVA which also has a french sector?

The nature of the Scottish ICAO codes are as follows:

EG= Europe, Great Britain
P= for Prestwick
The final letter comes from the second syllable of the name

EGPH= Edinburgh TurnHouse
EGPF= Glasgow RenFrew

I'm off to get out more now.

Oh, France is LF because Finland is EF.

sB x

And they are very picky about their own language: L'europe.

Re: Hong Kong

Kai Tak closed at mid-night (or there abouts) and Chek lAp Kok opened for business at 0600 the next day following a very long convoy of trucks, stairs and baggage trolleys.
The airports did actually operate simultaneously for a couple of hours between midnite and 0600 whilst a large number of aircraft repositioned from VHHH (Kai Tak) to VHHH (Chek lap Kok) for the early morning departures.

Grandad Flyer, How about ED = Europe Deuschland?

p.s. sure I've spelt that wrong

I'm glad that I first flew in New Zealand:

Christchurch - NZCH
Wellington - NZWN
Dunedin - NZDN
etc.

That's how to make life easy!