Difference between revisions of "1937: IATA Airport Abbreviations"

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(added codes for all listed "SAN" airports)
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  | SEA || Seattle
 
  | SEA || Seattle
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| SFO || San Francisco
 
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  | SFW || Santa Fe
 
  | SFW || Santa Fe
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| SJC || San Jose, California
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| SJC || San Juan, Puerto Rico
 
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  | SMH || Sapmanga
 
  | SMH || Sapmanga

Revision as of 16:21, 3 January 2018

IATA Airport Abbreviations
IATA stands for International AirporT Abbreviation.
Title text: IATA stands for International AirporT Abbreviation.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Expansion needed. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is making fun of the three-letter codes assigned to all airports. These codes are overseen by the IATA (International Air Transport Association). Some airport codes are very intuitive, taking letters from the city name (e.g. DEN for Denver). Other codes are somewhat intuitive, taking a letter or two from the nearby city name but adding an additional letter (e.g. LAX for Los Angeles). Other codes make seemingly no sense at all (e.g. ORD for Chicago's O'Hare International). In many cases, the airport codes are being conflated with internet / texting slang.

These are the real codes:

IATA Code City/Airport Description in the comic Explanation
AMD Ahmedabad Amsterdam Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Its Airport (called Schiphol) has the IATA code AMS.
ANC Anchorage
ATL Atlanta
BAE Barcelonnette
BLT Blackwater
BUF Buffalo
CLT Charlotte
DFW Dallas/Fort Worth
DTF not assigned
DTW Detroit
DWI not assigned
EWR Newark Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (which has the IATA code EDW) is a United States Air Force installation in southern California, about 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Lancaster and 15 miles (24 km) east of Rosamond.
FFS not assigned
FHQ not assigned
FYI not assigned
HGM not assigned
HSV Huntsville
IAD Washington
IUD Doha
JFC not assigned
KUL Kuala Lumpur
LAX Los Angeles
LOL Lovelock
MDW Chicago (Midway)
MIA Miami
OMW not assigned
ORD Chicago (O'Hare)
PDX Portland
PHL Philadelphia
SAN San Diego
SAT San Antonio
SEA Seattle
SFO San Francisco
SFW Santa Fe
SJC San Jose, California
SJC San Juan, Puerto Rico
SMH Sapmanga
STL St. Louis
TBA Tabibuga
TMI Tumlingtar
YYY Mont-Joli
YYZ Toronto

Transcript

Confused by those airport abbreviations used by your friends who fly a lot? Just memorize this list.

Aside 1: I'm flying into EWR tonight, then DTW tomorrow.
Aside 2: Ok, Cool. I definitely know what those mean without Googling.
Amsterdam
Beijing
Orlando
Idaho (Boise)
Jefferson City
Washington Dulles
Fayetteville
Louisville
Atalante
Hogsmeade
Omaha
Ankh-Morpork
Hunstville
San Diego
San Juan
San Francisco
San Antonio
Delaware International
Down for Whatever
Down to Whatever
Turkmenistan International
Las Angalas
Edwards Air Force Base
Pittsburgh
Sherwood Forest
Kingdom of Loathing
Silent Hill
Sunnydale
Tribeca
Smithfield
Baltimore
Toronto Downtown
Toronto Pearson
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Censored
Fhqwhgads
Flagstaff Station
Dartford
Midway Atoll
Pordlanx
Indicates Water Landing

}

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.


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Discussion

CLT is Charlotte Douglass International, but maybe the [censored] tag is referring to what this acronym sounds like when it's pronounced phonetically? 172.69.68.219 16:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Maybe someone just flew in or out of it and realized how messed up it is.  :) (I live in Charlotte and fly 4 times a year) --108.162.237.106 14:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

IATA actually stands for [Air Transport Association]. Nutster (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Ankh-Morpork is from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Hogsmeade is from Harry Potter. Kingdom of Loathing is a web-based multiplayer game. Sunnydale is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BUF). fhqwhgads is from a Strong Bad email (Homestar Runner). 108.162.238.35 16:15, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (Downtown Toronto) actually uses the call sign YTZ, not YYY. Nutster (talk) 16:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

List of the codes and airport names
AMD  Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport
BAE  Barcelonnette – Saint-Pons Airport
ORD  O'Hare International Airport
IAD  Washington Dulles International Airport
JFC  -
IUD  -
FYI  -
LOL  Derby Field
ATL  Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport
HGM  - 
OMW  -
ANC  Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport
HSV  Huntsville International Airport (Carl T. Jones Field)
SAN  San Diego International Airport
DWI  -
DFW  Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
DTW  Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
TMI  Tumlingtar Airport
LAX  Los Angeles International Airport
EWR  Newark Liberty International Airport
PHL  Philadelphia International Airport
SWF  Stewart International Airport
KUL  Kuala Lumpur International Airport
STL  Lambert–St. Louis International Airport
BUF  Buffalo Niagara International Airport
TBA  Tabibuga Airport
SMH  Sapmanga Airport
BLT  Blackwater Airport
YYY  Mont-Joli Airport
YYZ  Toronto Pearson International Airport
MIA  Miami International Airport
CLT  Charlotte Douglas International Airport
FHQ  -
FFS  -
DTF  -
MDW  Midway International Airport  
PDX  Portland International Airport
SEA  Seattle–Tacoma International Airport

Jefe9247 (talk) 16:33, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Could "Las Angalas" be the way Tommy Wiseau pronounces it? Tait marconi (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Re SWF being Sherwood Forest. Robin Hood airport, nearish to the historic location of Sherwood Forest actually exists. Sadly the IATA code is DSA (Doncaster Sheffield airport) - Putters -- Putters (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think that substituting PHL for Pittsburgh's airport might also be a jab at how Facebook got confused a few months ago, labeling posts from Pittsburgh as originating in Philadelphia. -- FuzzyBoots (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Possibly also relevant that quite a few of these are common abbreviations used in text-based communication (e.g. LOL, FYI, FFS, TMI, etc.). I wonder if it's something like https://xkcd.com/1015/, where once you've memorised these abbreviations you can't help but think of the (annoying and incorrect) airports that they stand for when reading text messages from others. 162.158.89.31 23:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I think KIX should be added as well, it stands for Kansai International Airport. Boeing-787lover 05:28, 5 January 2018 (UTC) -- Xkcdreader52 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Major Omission

i'd like to add BHD -- Baggage Handlers' Decision. MCMXLVII (talk) 02:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Also: HIJ - hijacking; ISS - self-explanatory141.101.76.16 09:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
A Question

The page has the line "Randall notes in the what if? book that Delaware has no airports. This entry is also a play on the nearby real airport BWI, Baltimore-Washington International." Which what-if is this from?

--173.245.52.151 16:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

The chapter in the book is "Flyover States: Which US state is actually flown over the most?" Rtanenbaum (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Observation

SeaTac isn't esp close to water (closest is >1 mile, perpendicular to runway orientation), although some of the flight patterns have segments over Puget Sound [Flight Patterns]. Still, nothing like LGA or SFO where a short/long can put the plane in the water. 172.68.141.238 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Another Missing Airport

What about FUK? The first time I saw this one, I checked with my boss. It is for Fukuoka, Japan. 162.158.75.232 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I was disappointed not to see Montreal's weird-ass code YUL in here (until I read the chart and found out nearly none are real), but it's nice to still see an explanation of the Y, LOL! NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I wanted to see HMB (Sohag International Airport) 173.245.52.109 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
I'm still disappointed that my local airport (for Dunedin, New Zealand) has the unfortunate abbreviation DUD. 198.41.238.22 11:53, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

In the explanation it mentions that Dartford is likely a portmanteau of Dartmouth and Harvard, but I would have thought Dartmouth and Oxford would be more of a match. Is there a reason for those two specifically? 162.158.106.102 15:24, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

ok so i knew their actual meanings and play kol, so the kuala lumpur one (kul) being changed to "kingdom of loathing" made me say just 1 thing: ffs, randall, i know "u" looks like "o" but no need to say it An user who has no account yet (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2023 (UTC)