It could work because the first three letters are of the city's name.

I have not been to Madagascar so I don't think people go there to D-O-A.

Now what the world needs is an airport with the initials C-A-T! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Thanks, skperry. Of course it's in Kentucky. Cinci is in Ohio, and the river is the state line. Slip of the finger. Sorry about that! (And I've actually been there for more than just changing planes on Delta.)

Agree with the CATMAN, we should have a CAT airport and a DOG one too!

My buddy, Chuck, from Spokane says that GEG is for Geiger Field. According to him, both the field and the road were named for some WWII Airforce officer named what else---Geiger.

Location code: CAT
City: Cat Island
Country: Bahamas
Country code: BS


Location code: DOG
City: Dongola
Country: Sudan
Country code: SD

Maybe CATMAN's been to the first one?

Austman is awesome man!

Denver was DIA, Denver International Airport, But I don't remember what the code was. DEN I think. How quickly we forget.

Wasn't "DEN" the old Stapleton airport?

DEN was probably the old Stapleton airport now dust.

Now I wonder who the primary residents of CAT ISLAND are... I really want to go here!!!

If the Governor of Minnesota flies from Teresina, Brazil to Bordeau, France, his routing would be "THE-BOD"

Saw this one the other day:

POS - Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago

Celestar is not quite right on the Canadian codes.

All airports actually have a four character code, for navigation use. The first two letters are national designators.

For example, Narita is RJAA, Kansai is RJBB. Chep Lap Kok took over Kai Tak's VHHH. (Notice the VH is consistent with CX's aircraft registrations, VH-xxx?)

In the US, most commercial airports share their three letter designator--so JFK is KJFK, LAX is KLAX, etc.

In Canada, all designators begin with C. When designations were assigned, oh so many years ago, fields with control towers were given the designator Y, fields without towers were issued Z's. So Canadian fields are generally CYxx or CZxx. When the time came to assign IATA designations, we just dropped the 'C'.

Early on, some of the final two letter combinations were meant to be descriptive. Hence, airports like YVR, YOW, YSJ, YFC and YQB are easy to decipher.

However, many of today's airports have been built on fields which post date the initial assignments. Dorval (YUL) was not a commercial field until after the war, prior to which St.-Hubert (YHU) was the principal airfield for Montreal. YHZ was not built until the 50's, replacing CFB Shearwater. In a lot of cases, the most obvious designators were already assigned.

Many commercial airfields use Qx or Yx for their designators--YQM (Moncton), YQY (Charlottetown) etc. and YYZ (Pearson), YYC (Calgary) YYJ (Sidney-Victoria BC), YYT (Torbay, St. John's).

This is, again, an older convention which was used to distinguish the larger (Y) fields from the smaller (Q) fields.

See http://www.skygod.com . There's an article on there explaining some names.

I'm still amused by Souix City. SUX. Never been there, and the airport code isn't exactly encouraging...

I always figured MCO was Disney-related. Mickey COuntry. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Actually, an international airport is about the only thing they DON'T own these days...

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

I believe the "official" name of the aerodrome is "Geiger Field". There is a notation to that effect on the approach plates for Spokane. Named for a military aviator, if memory serves. I will look it up when I fly for "Uncle" next week.