This practice is not followed outside the United States: Karachi is KHI,Īnd Nagoya is NGO. HVN for New Haven, Connecticut, ORF for Norfolk, Virginia,īNA for Nashville, Tennessee (whose airport's original name was Berry Field), and cities whose names begin with one of these letters had to adopt 'irregular' airport codes: Navy reserved 'N' codes, and to prevent confusion with Federal Communications Commission broadcast call signs, which begin with 'W' or 'K', the airports of certain U.S. Naming conventions National policies United States This system allowed for 17,576 permutations, assuming all letters can be used in conjunction with each other. This system became unmanageable for cities and towns without an NWS identifier, and the use of two letters allowed only a few hundred combinations a three-letter system of airport codes was implemented. Initially, pilots in the United States used the two-letter code from the National Weather Service (NWS) for identifying cities. However, many railway administrations have their own list of codes for their stations, such as the list of Amtrak station codes.Īirport codes arose out of the convenience that the practice brought pilots for location identification in the 1930s.

A list of railway station codes, shared in agreements between airlines and rail lines such as Amtrak, SNCF, and Deutsche Bahn, is available. Īlphabetical lists of airports sorted by IATA code are available. IATA provides codes for airport handling entities, and for certain railway stations. The codes are published semi-annually in the IATA Airline Coding Directory. The assignment of these codes is governed by IATA Resolution 763, and it is administered by the IATA's headquarters in Montreal, Canada. The characters prominently displayed on baggage tags attached at airport check-in desks are an example of a way these codes are used. JSTOR ( February 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ī baggage tag for a flight heading to Oral Ak Zhol Airport, whose IATA airport code is 'URA'.Īn IATA airport code, also known as an IATA location identifier, IATA station code, or simply a location identifier, is a three-letter geocode designating many airports and metropolitan areas around the world, defined by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: 'IATA airport code' – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

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