Hi

is there a way to put a 3 letter airport code in the search ?

I wanted to see what was said about the LAX computer meltdown but it will not take a 3 letter search ,

this seems stupid since all the airport codes are 3 letters....

any ideas ?

Rally

Use google from

http://www.flyertalk.com/google_search.php

That's a very lame work-around. One can't search "Los Angeles" because the "Los" gets the same rediculous message.

As I've written for several years now -- and it seems to absolutely no avail -- it is truly sad that a stie that specializes in travel and a form of travel that has three-letter city/airport codes at its heart, not to mention two-letter airline codes, should be able to has a Search Function that permits searching with these key and essential terms.

IF THE NEW OWNERS OF FT ARE LISTENING: PLEASE RECTIFY THIS ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you find time to read the 9/13/07 announcement: ability to do three-character searches coming soon

The Google search does not have the four character minimum, so there's no need to search for anything except LAX. So what makes the Google search a lame work-around?

Have you read Sticky: Using the Search Feature on FlyerTalk: The Definitive Thread?

Have you tried using the wild card search (LAX* in this case)?

Bingo to all these suggestions. ^

Plus, as an additional suggestion, if one is truly searching for "Los Angeles," most of the time simply "Angeles" will do the trick, as this string tends not to occur on FT in contexts other than "Los Angeles." The point being, always try to boil the search terms down to the essential. @:-)

Also, perhaps the moderators could merge all these repetitive threads into one? The same complaints and responses seem to be posted all over the place. (People seem to be quick to post complaints, but slow to search for, or acknowledge, solutions. )

Thanks. You brought up another point that is all too common on FT. Instead of learning how to effectively search on FT - which, like learning to do effective searches on the internet, takes time, practice, and reading the available guides (I wish the FT search guide was around years ago) - they gripe about the system and post their questions without searching.

It probably would be good to have all these repetitive threads merged together. Then again, if they can't be bothered to read the sticky, would it do much good?

BTW, when I read your post I thought of another idea and tried a FT search for "Los Angeles" (with the quotes) and it works. "LA" or "LAX" won't work, and the Google search for "LA" also returns La and la, and there should be a way to go directly to advanced Google search from the search results page like a regular Google search. It is possible to get there from the main Google page or by starting a search from the Google Tool Bar and clicking on Advanced Search. It would then be possible to do an advanced search of FT. I also found that in an advanced search Google recognizes the exact phrase "LA" is the same as "Los Angeles" and "NW" is the same as "Northwest." I don't know if it works in reverse, but I couldn't find any results where that happened.

Perhaps Google's Advanced Search makes use of a dictionary/thesaurus of synonyms, like other "industrial-strength" search engines. (This would be a useful thing for FT search to have as well.)