Airport Identifiers

S

Swen

IPA Consumer
When I was working on my private I recall my instructor telling me why some airport identifiers contained numbers. I forgot what he said so asked my current instructor but he didn't know and told me to find out so I can educate him (Feel the power?
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). Hence the question: Why do some have letters and numbers in the airport identifier?

I searched on google and got THIS but it does not really answer the question.
 
You've gotta do something, since there's only so many 3 letter combos you can make for all the airports around. You need to have some with letter/number combos.
 
Whittle that down with alphabetic combinations that wouldn't be confused with other existing airports plus that are relevant to the name of the city!
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Wouldn't want to call "Cottonwood, AZ" PXW!

At least that's kind of the way I see it, and I might be (and often are) wrong.
 
Don't forget that some airports deal with the name of the field rather than the city. BDL and MCO come to mind immediately.
 
I once heard what sounded like a legitimate reason why some airports were just number/letter combos (i.e. 3G7) and some were all letters (BGM) when an airport I used to fly into changed over. Now I can't remember what it was...
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Edit: I think this was it, found it in the link above:

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an airport served by scheduled route air-carrier or military airlift aircraft always has a code comprising of only three letters.

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I "heard" that airports with 3 LETTER identifiers were "more likely" to be larger and more heavily used, thus assigned letters. Smaller airports were given identifiers of letters and numbers, often referring to the state the airport is located.
 
Nice link, but I didn't see it explain it. 3 letter codes are ATA codes, 4 letter are IATA, which are the Air Transport Assoc and Int'l Air Transport Assoc, respectively. I think that the ATA reserves the three letters for airports which have or do have scheduled commercial air service. Some haven't had it for years, but once they got it, they have usually gotten to keep it.
 
I don't think that explanation works either though, as the Rock Hill airport used to be a numbered identifier, and in the last few years changed to KUZA. We've never had any sort of scheduled service in or out of Rock Hill either.
 
It happens.

I was thinking that it might have something to do with weather reporting also but haven't come up with a way to verify it.
 
No scheduled air carriers into OLV, and it's got its own letters. Go up the river to General DeWitt Spain in downtown Memphis, and they have some weird code like M97 or something.
 
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Whittle that down with alphabetic combinations that wouldn't be confused with other existing airports plus that are relevant to the name of the city!
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Wouldn't want to call "Cottonwood, AZ" PXW!


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Ahh, that explains why there's a little airstrip in a little town called Chicago Illinois that's identified by ORD. I can see how you get "Chicago" out of that.
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I thought i remember my instructor telling me that the the airports with a K and letters after it (i.e. klax) were customs designated. meaning that customs could meet you there if you came in from outside the US. But the ones with numbers (i.e. L71), arent designated for customs.

has anyone else heard this?
 
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I thought i remember my instructor telling me that the the airports with a K and letters after it (i.e. klax) were customs designated. meaning that customs could meet you there if you came in from outside the US. But the ones with numbers (i.e. L71), arent designated for customs.

has anyone else heard this?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Customs isn't available at all airports with a three letter identifier.
 
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Whittle that down with alphabetic combinations that wouldn't be confused with other existing airports plus that are relevant to the name of the city!
smile.gif


Wouldn't want to call "Cottonwood, AZ" PXW!


[/ QUOTE ]
Ahh, that explains why there's a little airstrip in a little town called Chicago Illinois that's identified by ORD. I can see how you get "Chicago" out of that.
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[/ QUOTE ]


I heard that where O'Hare is today used to be a Peach orchard field.

Orchard=ORD

[ QUOTE ]

I thought i remember my instructor telling me that the the airports with a K and letters after it (i.e. klax) were customs designated. meaning that customs could meet you there if you came in from outside the US. But the ones with numbers (i.e. L71), arent designated for customs.

has anyone else heard this?

[/ QUOTE ]

I heard that airports with the designator "K" are for airports in the contiguous 48 states.Which is why Honolulu and Anchorage starts with the identifier "P"instead of "K".

Lastly I live in PHX that's Phoenix AZ. Anyone know the three letter airport identifier code for PHX or Phoenix AZ. as it is commonly referred to!?

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-Matthew
 
Oh yeah, well I used to live in DEN, that's Denver Colorado. How in the hell do they get DEN from Denver?
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Hijack,

Speaking of DEN, does anybody remember if DEN was the identifier for Stapleton, or did that come when they opened DIA? Just curious. That was a little before I was old enough to fly.
 
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