Comments (14)

1. Another one that makes no sense is Houston’s George Bush International Airport (IAH)

   posted by Witty Nickname on 6-26-2009 at 12:03 pm

2. Unless you’re from the area Lehigh Valley International (such as it is) code makes no sense either.

   ABE

   (Used to be Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton)

   posted by Hyacinth on 6-26-2009 at 12:17 pm

3. You do know there are 3 airports serving London England (Heathrow, Gatwick & London City) ?

   posted by Its Just Dave on 6-26-2009 at 12:27 pm

4. In Canada, all airports (at least, all international airports – not sure about smaller ones) have codes that start with Y. I’m not sure Y, but that’s how it is. Toronto is YYZ, Vancouver is YVR, etc.

   ReCaptcha: the shirks, which would be a great name for a place (or airport!) in England

   posted by Jon. on 6-26-2009 at 12:31 pm

5. I must take you to task about the London question: LHR is the code for Heathrow, LON is the code for the city (incompassing LHR, LGW, and to a lesser extent, STN, LCY, among others). I carefully checked – you asked for the London code, not the Heathrow code.
   This takes me back to my Airline training 23 years ago – after the first day of class, we were required to learn all the airport codes for all the cities the carrier serviced — and to learn them all by the next day’s class, and if we didn’t make better than 98%, we would be dropped from class. …Kind of illustrates why I’m a bit picky about the missed one.

   posted by Karl on 6-26-2009 at 12:58 pm

6. Nantucket Island, MA is ACK, which leads to cries of “ACK nice” and “welcome bACK” and “ACK! summer tourist season”

   recaptcha: Nudged Practically

   posted by Carmen on 6-26-2009 at 1:08 pm

7. Fun! I’m at GYR (Goodyear – Phoenix) right now!

   posted by tiffany on 6-26-2009 at 1:16 pm

8. MCO = Orlando International Airport

   posted by Byron on 6-26-2009 at 1:39 pm

9. Before George H.W. Bush, it was known as Intercontinental Airport Houston, thus the IAH. I remember taking training where they emphasized the difference between Portland, Oregon PWX and Portland, Maine PME Evidently it was a common mistake to send people to the wrong Portland.

   posted by Tex on 6-26-2009 at 3:07 pm

10. I’m not much of an air-traveler but still got 50%. What makes it confusing is things like O’Hare in Chicago being ORD as it was originally ORcharD Field before it was expanded and re-named O’Hare. I knew that one – a lot of Chicagoans don’t – but some of their other “off-the-wall” codes, I missed.

    posted by Larry Fiehn on 6-26-2009 at 3:56 pm

11. I used to live and work in Rochester, Minnesota and dealt with travelers flying in. We emphasized with them to be sure their bags were tagged for RST, and not ROC, which would send their bags to Rochester, NY!

    posted by Larry Fiehn on 6-26-2009 at 3:59 pm

12. I like the New Orleans airport.
    The official name is Louis Armstrong International Airport, but the code is MSY, because the airport was built on the Moissant Stock Yards…

    posted by Lindsey on 6-26-2009 at 5:56 pm

13. The Sacramento, CA code is SMF (Sacramento Metropolitan Field). I think it has something to do with the airport being added onto/moved/etc. like a lot of them.

    Once, however, as I was on a flight into SMF, the flight attendant on the speaker accidentally greeted us with “thank you for flying with us today, and welcome to Smackermento.”

    posted by KWildman on 6-27-2009 at 12:46 am

14. How about Louisville which is SDF? We always remembered that one with the mnemonic \Some Dumb F**ker.\

    posted by Greg Mickelson on 6-28-2009 at 10:41 pm

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