The report should be completed by the end of the week.
The report should be finished by the end of the week. There are thousands of airports connecting cities across countries and continents, and with just three letters (from AAC and BBI to YYZ and ZZU) both me and you and our bags can root round the world as unambiguously as practically possible. Airport codes are part of the planning on our tickets, trackers and tags, and even part of the airport itself as big big branding.
It’s impossible not to wonder, bored on a long haul with only in-flight entertainment, about potential patterns peeking through. Like all the Canadian Y airports - why Canada and why everyone? To find the answer, we need to divert this flight to YUL - the Canadian city that’s capital of codes, Montreal, where IATA (the International Air Transport Association) is headquartered.
IATA is not a governmental organization, but an independent Aviation Agency for Airlines, where they work to make airports and airplanes increasingly interoperable using humanity’s most exciting and powerful, yet off-maligned as dull, tool - standards. One of which is the IATA Airport Code - three letters to identify every airport in the world, from the most connected to the least. All are coded so companies can communicate clearly and concisely, complicated connections to carry their customers and their bags.
Actually, the code IATA created isn’t only for airports - rather, technically it’s a location code for all kinds of Transportation interchanges, like plane stations that connect to train stations (such as Amsterdam Schipol, which is intermodally epic).
Here’s how the IATA code is supposed to work - one airport, one code, which is unique because airport names are not. Booking passage to Portland - cool, that could be Oregon or Maine or Victoria, Australia. Ambiguity is the enemy! International flying creates communication connections between every language on Earth, so the IATA code helps when you don’t speak Greenlandic or Odia, but still need to book a flight to Kangerlussuaq via BBI.
IATA coordinates everyone’s code preferences, which means dealing with not just individual airports, but all the aviation agencies in different countries, some with their own design desires for inter-country code consistency (such as Canada, who clearly claimed all the Ys). Thus, picking a Y1 at random, at least you know roughly where you’re going to go. Oops, no, that didn’t work - YKM brought us to Washington, USA.
Since we’re here, we might as well talk about the FAA in America - the Federal Aviation Administration, daughter of the Department of Transportation, is given the job of assigning all American airports an American airport code. Yes, the FAA actually has her own set of three-letter codes, but we’re not going to talk about it because it means in America there’s one airport, two codes.
For simplicity, I’m sticking to this story - one airport, one code. Right now, the FAA has letters she’d really rather American airports not use - NQWKZ or Y - N is reserved for the Navy. For OMG, is it aircraft carriers? No, they use an unrelated and additional system.
This is one of the major things IATA does - coordinate everyone’s code preferences, which means dealing with not just individual airports, but all the aviation agencies in different countries, some with their own design desires for inter-country code consistency (such as Canada, who clearly claimed all the Ys). Thus, picking a Y1 at random, at least you know roughly where you’re going to go. Oops, no, that didn’t work - YKM brought us to Washington, USA.
Since we’re here, we might as well talk about the FAA in America - the Federal Aviation Administration, daughter of the Department of Transportation, is given the job of assigning all American airports an American airport code. Yes, the FAA actually has her own set of three-letter codes, but we’re not going to talk about it because it means in America there’s one airport, two codes.
For simplicity, I’m sticking to this story - one airport, one code. Right now, the FAA has letters she’d really rather American airports not use - NQWKZ or Y - N is reserved for the Navy. For OMG, is it aircraft carriers? No, they use an unrelated and additional system.
So, if your local airport has an odd three letters, there’s probably a rival port that picked previously. This is one of the major things IATA does - coordinate everyone’s code preferences, which means dealing with not just individual airports, but all the aviation agencies in different countries, some with their own design desires for