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Cities without weather stations needed identification
- When the airline service industry exploded in the 1930’s it was determined that cities without weather stations needed identification. The three-letter system was born and to simplify things in the beginning, existing airports simply added an X after the weather station code.
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Oct 16, 2012 · The airports with two-letter weather station codes received an X on the end (LA became LAX and Portland's PD became PDX), and every subsequent airport was given three letters.
- The History
- K, W and N
- City vs. Airport
- The Unusual
- Canada Eh
- The Funny
The assignment of airport codes is administered by the Montreal-based International Air Transport Association, also known as IATA and the codes cover airports all around the globe. All airports with just a few minor exceptions have a three-letter code. But before there were three-letter codes, in the early years of aviation, the airline simply copi...
You won’t find any airports with codes that being with the letters K, W and N and no that is not a coincidence; there is actually some rhyme and reason for this. Some special interest groups actually lobbied the government to obtain their own letters. The Navy for example saved all the new N codes for themselves, and the Navy training airport in Pe...
Some airport codes have been developed by using the actual name of the airport. For example Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, France is actually CDG, a code that confuses just about anyone who flies through there irregularly. A more well-known airport that uses their name for the code is John F. Kennedy airport in New York, who uses JFK as their ...
There seem to be some airport codes out there that just don’t make any sense at all. Take the Knoxville airport for example with the letter code of TYS. It turns out that the land that the airport was built on was actually donated by a family, who’s last name ‘Tyson’ was used in honor of their son killed in WWI. How about Orlando’s airport code MCO...
Canadians somehow made off with all the “Y” letter codes and one has to venture back into history to understand why, and even then we aren’t exactly sure how we ended up with them. Most theories suggest that Canada had locked up the entire Y for its radio transmitters and therefore it made sense to translate that into airport codes. Some of the air...
Some of the airport codes out there are just downright funny, some even inappropriate and although some residents have embraced the names, others hate them. Fresno, California’s three letter codes is FAT and rumor has it that the locals don’t enjoy it at all. At least they aren’t stuck with PEE which is Russia’s Bolshoye Savino Airport or Brazil’s ...
- Lindsay Macnevin
Nov 11, 2014 · This explains the ‘X’ after airport codes such as LAX (Los Angeles) and PHX (Phoenix) as seemingly, the simplest thing to do was to add another letter onto the end of the weather station...
Sep 27, 2023 · Notably, every airport code will start with a Y, W, U, X, or Z. Like America, they used two-letter codes to designate railway stations but had to make their codes three letters long. Thus, the authorities added the Y, W, U, X, or Z. Ys indicate a "yes" of sorts—confirming that the weather station's location was in the same place as the airport.
- Davis Turner
Jan 5, 2018 · That's a remnant from the early days of air travel when airports were referred to by a two-letter 'weather station' code, which in this case was simply LA. When the growth of air travel created the need for three-letter codes, the airport’s original designation had an ‘X’ amended to ease the transition, as did Portland ( PDX ).
Jan 5, 2023 · Many existing airports added an X after the weather station code, so for example, Los Angeles became known as LAX or KLAX. Finally, the Federal Aviation Administration uses a combination of three or four alphanumeric characters used to identify small airports in the US that don’t have an ICAO code; Orbx customers should be familiar with names ...
Feb 7, 2024 · Cities with multiple airports use codes that reference the airport’s name instead. Some codes are assigned for historical reasons. For example, Canadian airport codes originate from their weather reporting station designations. Airport Codes in the United States (FAA LID)
