Good question. Actually, when doing a search, click on the "Advanced Search" option listed as a text link at the bottom of the Search menu.
When you go to Advanced Search, enter your search terms, including 2 and 3 letter searches in the search area at the bottom of the page, known as the "IB Beta Search." This allows you to search for these fewer letters.
This restriction was put on FlyerTalk a long time ago because of the amount of traffic and the massive number of searches members did, it severely hampered the performance of the Web site and could bring it to a crawl (OK, enter jokes and laugh track here....). However, with the resources of IB, we have Betaed a new search tool which means you no longer have to go through Google to search FlyerTalk to get around this problem.
I am told from IB that we will soon be converting to the new Beta Search as the standard search sometime soon which should resolve this limitation.
In the meantime, the woraround is to use Advanced Search.
Hope this helps and thanks for your support of FlyerTalk.
Randy
Originally Posted by
finandist
Randy,
With the search box specifying a minimum length of four letters, how is the user supposed to search for IATA codes for airlines and airports (two and three letters, respectively)? I would think these would be the most common uses of the search box (as most posts reference airports and airlines solely by these abbreviations). The ICAO codes for airlines and airports (three and four letters, respectively) are not in common usage. Is there a workaround that I'm not aware of? I found nothing in the FAQs. Thanks for any enlightenment you could provide!