Feature request
 

In my years of working with numerous large organizations, I find they have an appalling tendency to use TLA’s everywhere. I theorize that this is a mechanism of exclusion, of keeping outsiders on the outside. By now, you’re probably feeling like an outsider because you didn’t know that a TLA is a three-letter acronym. This inclination to use acronyms is doubly maddening because too often an acronym in one industry means something entirely different in another. You end up having to memorize a long list of acronyms just to keep up with the conversation.

As a frequent flyer, I’ve reluctantly started to memorize airport codes. Some are straightforward and I can pick them up easily (e.g. PHL is Philadelphia). Others are fiendishly disguised but you can eventually catch on (e.g. EWR is Newark). Too many, unfortunately, have absolutely no connection to the airport or the city name (e. g. YYZ for Toronto). If I don’t use an airport after a while, I forget the code. I flew to Chicago last year every week for five months but can no longer remember the code. Given the fact that there are thousands of airport codes, memorizing them seems rather impractical.

Now for the request:
When someone uses an airport code, can you arrange it so that when we roll our mouse over the acronym, a pop up appears with the airport city and country? I’ve seen this feature used for advertising on other sites and think it would be very valuable here.

Thanks!

Much as I wouldn't want to preempt Randy, I use a Greaemonkey script for Firefox that does just what you ask for. You can get it from: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~abuckley/airports.html. It generally works really well, although I've found it mangles some URLs in posts where the URL contains an airport code (if this happens, you can just disable the script temporarily from the Greasemonkey menu).

If you're not using Firefox, then I suggest you start doing so :)

Seems likea good idea, but after a while, you will really know most of the airport codes.

Once in a while a airport code will come up that I do not recognize, and then I just plug it here.

Or you could click on HELP in the title bar, then Airport Code Lookup. ^

http://www.flyertalk.com/acl/

And here I've always thought it was simply a time-saving method. For example, it's much easier to type DFW and OKC than it is to spell out Dallas-Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City... especially since DFW has both a hyphen AND a period. :(

Time saving method? Not really
 

That's the excuse I hear most often, but let's face it, the time you save is minuscule while it costs the reader dearly. Imgne hw mch tm u cud save if u used evn mor typng shrtcts. Taking things to an extreme, yes, but the point is, if the reader has to think in order to understand what's written, your time saved is another's time wasted. It takes me approximately three seconds to type Dallas Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City but would take me a few minutes to look up their code.

Looking up the code - the last resort, obviously. That takes time that could be saved by having the machine do it for me; thus the request I've put forth. As for eventually remembering them; no. I've already forgotten the code for an airport I used frequently last year. Now I'm too busy dealing with ELIS, ALT, CDS, CC, BOM and scores of other TLA's that I'll soon have to purge from my memory after finishing my current project.

For folks that spend their waking lives skittering about the country, I have no doubt that the airport codes are second nature for you. However, I, and many like me, tend to do frequent trips between a handful of airports and the codes of the others are simply letters with no meaning. If the site provided the feature I've requested, I'm quite sure it would help a lot of people.

Of course, it would also help if folks stopped using bizarre acronyms for just about everything else too!

I am a poor typist. You can call my use of abbreviations and acronyms an "excuse" if you wish, but that doesn't do a thing to improve my typing skills. It really doesn't matter to me how long it takes you to type Dallas-Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City, unless you'll volunteer to come over and type my posts for me. ;) Have I misunderstood? It seems that you're asking me (and others like me) to spend more time typing to save you time reading. What makes your time more valuable than ours?

You say you can't remember airport codes. That wouldn't be an excuse because you simply don't want to make the effort, would it?

I learned the language here, as have thousands of other members. Just give it a little time; it's really not that hard. There's a wealth of information on Flyer Talk. Even if you have to do a little studying to understand what everything means, it'll be worth it in the long run. Good luck.

You might be a slow typist, oklAAhoma, but surely not a poor typist. ;-)

As far as spending more time composing your message so that others require less time reading your message, yes, that's exactly what I'm proposing. You could look at it from a strictly economic viewpoint. If you can save ten seconds by using *A (instead of Star Alliance), you could potentially make hundreds or thousands of readers ponder over that bizarre acronym for ten seconds. That ads up to hours and hours of lost time.

It wasn't until communication writing became key to my work that I finally understood Mark Twain's line “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Good communication takes time. If you want people to understand you, take the time to write good. :D

You're right, I don't want to make the effort, but it's not as simple as an excuse. I might spend an hour a week dealing with airport codes. Memorizing several hundred codes would take a considerable amount of time for a limited payoff. I spend far more time on business and leisure sites with their own jargon and grating acronyms (not to mention text formatting languages) each of which introduce their own acronyms for unfathomable reasons. I spend a few dozen hours each week dealing with a project that uses arcane and unnecessary TLA's. This I have to memorize because this organization, sadly, has an absolute fetish for them.

Why the need to create a new language? English works just fine. Jargon and acronyms build a gate against outsiders. While this may not be a conscious decision, it takes place nevertheless. (I'm reminded of a TV commercials where all but one person are wearing gel insoles and keep saying how they're "Gelin'" while the protagonist, trying to fit in says he's "Gelin'" too - the others just laugh at him.)

It seems entirely practical to use airport codes in Flyertalk.com, but it's not necessary to have to memorize all the codes in order to get maximum value from the information. I've encountered numerous web sites with roll-over function that displays additional information ... such as the name of the city the code refers.

Is there anyone here who thinks this would not be a valuable addition to the site?

I'm going to risk life and limb and agree with the OP and disagree with my good friend oklAAhoma. :)

I’m here and I doubt the value of the addition; because I think it would be costly in terms of both response time for users and for the owner of this site.

As for me personally, I must tell you that I absolutely delight in the world of three letter acronyms of which TLA is by far the King. TLA contributes to why I love aviation - which uses so many. For me it is fun to try to ‘decode’ airport/airfield TLA; and when I can’t, to learn how they got them.

When I was in the Air Force, I trained at GOF (Goodfellow AFB) and Chandler Field/Williams AFB (formerly CHD-now IWA) - soon to be know as Mesa-Phoenix Airport. I flew to and from (t/f) both MCO (Orlando) when it was McCoy AFB Base and t/f Olmstead AFB in Middletown, PA (MDT), now the Harrisburg airport.

BTW, I always distinguish between, and try to avoid using, lowly three-letter abbreviations (tla) as contrasted with Majestic TLA. Thus I do not write 'apt' when I mean 'airport' because it is also used for 'apartment'.

The TLA for the airport t/f you flew ±20 flights last year is ORD, named for the village of Orchard Place, site of a WW2 Douglas cargo plane factory airfield and subsequently purchased by the city of Chicago (CHI) for O’Hare airport.

BTW, I want to point out that most of the airports names cited above honored military pilots.

FYI, N (and W) cannot be the first letter of an airfield name; thus Newark is EWR, Norfolk is ORF and Williams is IWA, etc.

jezsik, I hate to be the one to break the news to you; but each airline also has a TLA (assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO – a FLA (you guess its meaning)] in addition to the two-letter currently most often used. But you may find the TLA to be more acceptable, e.g., WN is SWA (Southwest).

What’s not to find interesting with TLAs? Four of my favorite websites are devoted to TLA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-letter_acronym
www.atomiser.demon.co.uk/abbrev/index.html
http://www.tla.org/tla.html
http://www.kendrick.org/tla/default.aspx

Best wishes,

kappa - from NYC flying out of LGA, HPN, EWR and JFK (formerly IDL) with a lifetime log of flights - military and civilian - using TLA.
______
Life without TLA would be chaotic

Sorry, but your point is not entirely clear. Who or what is an OP? Is that some sort of shorthand for the Only Person who is correct? Or maybe it's an Ornery Pilot you're hoping to placate? I suppose it's possible you're simple stating that you prefer Orange Pencils, but why do you think that would Offend People like me? :)

Another reason why I love FlyerTalk - I learn things most every day I'm here. I never knew the origin of these and many thanks for the lesson.

Great irony! :D

Great explanation but you left me wondering why?

This should be easy to do with the HTML ABBR tag, like this: <abbr title="full name">abbreviation</abbr>

I don't know if vBulletin supports automatically replacing certain pieces of text with tags (so that SFO would become <abbr title="San Francisco International">SFO</abbr>). It seems a bit far-fetched, but supposing it does, I would be in favor of using such feature this way.