Any fan of the rock group Rush (from Toronto) should know YYZ.

SteveH

just want to add on:

SAN - San Diego
SNA - Orange County

Talk about a slip on your fingers... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

fastflyer, thanks for the note about MCI. i was once told emphatically by a missourian that it's MCI to emphasize that it's in missouri city. guess i was lead astray.

you're also correct about wcom-fon; i wasn't thinking.

I usually look them up at http://www.airportcitycodes.com

And then you have problems with Indian cities changing their names. BOM (Bombay) is now Mumbai (will it become MUM?). MAA (Madras) is now Chennai.

I just returned from a week in Destin, Florida. The airport code is VPS. The airport is shared with Eglin AFB and is known as Okaloosa Regional Airport (the county name). Nobody seemed to know why the code is VPS. I have a guess, but want to see if anyone REALLY knows.

FWIW, it's a real pain in the a** to get to anyplace from there. Next time I'll take JAX and catch the Blue Angels at practice.

LED = St. Petersburg. The city was called Leningrad, so it actually makes sense...

Another good one:
HMA = Malmo City Hovercraft (out of service)
MMX = Malmo Sturup
XFR = Malmo Syd (train)
XFP = Malmo Central station (train)

All of them can be bunched together with another abbreviation:
MMA = Malmo

Spartacus, Okaloosa Airport is called VPS cause it's in Valparaiso.

[This message has been edited by pynchonesque (edited 05-27-2001).]

An excellent reference on this subject and others is "The Intrepid Traveler's Complete Desk Reference" by Sally Scanlon/Kelly Monaghan. Published by The Intrepid Traveler of NYC. It lists virtually any airport code in the world. Also has info on hotel and car rentals, tourist info sources, travel agencies, visa/passports, etc.

------------------
Tom Rice

Is there some rule that says that every trainstations code must starts with an X? All Trainstation in Sweden starts with an X and I know they start with an X in Denmark as well. What about the rest of the world?

It seems like 'X' stands for rail service, at least in Sweden, Denmark, and Canada (if you look up airport codes staering with 'X' on ITN, you'll find lots of Canadian cities with rail service)

The Worldcom (nee MCI) Sprint merger didn't happen. It was rejected by both the DOJ and the EU last year.

There's at least one airport that starts with X: XNA, for Northwest Arkansas.

Ever notice no U.S. airports start with K, N or W? I think this is done so there's no confusion with broadcast stations (K and W) or tail numbers (N)

If anyone has a Bloomberg workstation, check out its list of Z-codes sometimes. It looks like a lot of codes beginning with Z have already been assigned as overflows.

Okay, okay... I admit, some codes are not as obvious. But isn't it a nice game to play when you're bored waiting for your luggage on the belt... guess where other passengers came from by reading the airport code on their luggage tags!
Oh and btw, Cape Town is actually CPT...
see, it's not that hard... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif