![]() ![]() “While ORD might not be an obvious call sign for Chicago O’Hare International Airport, it’s a meaningful one that tells a lot about the airport’s history and how far we’ve come,” said a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation. Seventy years later, O’Hare International Airport, one of the world’s busiest, still goes by ORD. ![]() Commander Edward O’Hare, a young Navy fighter pilot shot down in the Pacific in 1943. In 1949, the airfield was renamed in honor of Lt. After the war, the airport land was transferred to the City of Chicago and renamed Orchard Field. #IATA CITY CODES CODE#The first airport there was known as Orchard Place/Douglas Field and was designated by the code ORD. ![]() The area was called Orchard Place and was used as an aircraft manufacturing site for the Douglas Aircraft Co. War Production Board purchased a 1,790-acre plot of underdeveloped orchard land outside of Chicago. Eventually, the Moisant Stock Yards gave way to New Orleans International Airport, and finally to its current name in honor of jazz icon Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. When the airport was built near the stockyards, the name stuck. After his death, the 3.82 miles of property became a cattle stockyard and was named after him. ![]() The code comes from early aviation pioneer John Moisant, who crashed his plane in a nearby field in 1910. MSY, in New Orleans, is one of those stories. But many others have strange three-letter codes that defy logic, and behind each of those codes is a story. Many airport codes are straightforward: PIT for Pittsburgh International, BOS for Boston Logan … even LGA for New York’s LaGuardia makes sense. ORD? That’s a little airstrip known as Chicago’s O’Hare International. Oddly enough, MCO is Orlando International Airport and MSY is Louis Armstrong New Orleans International. There are 8,965 airport codes, followed by 235 bus stations, 816 rail stations, 151 heliports, and 64 ferry ports.When’s the last time you flew to McCoy Air Force Base (MCO), Moisant Stock Yards (MSY) or Orchard Place (ORD)? The IATA’s three letter permutation (26 x 26 x 26) allows for a total of 17,576 unique location codes.Īccording to the organization’s website, they have currently administered over 11,000 location codes worldwide. No two airports are allowed to share an IATA code, so if both of those options are already taken, the airport may be given a code that refers to an aspect of the city’s history or specific location.įor instance, Louis Armstrong International in New Orleans took the code MSY in honor of pioneering pilot and longtime Louisiana resident John Moisant, Orlando International’s MCO designation comes from its former life as McCoy Air Force Base, and Nashville’s BNA got its B from Colonel Harry Berry, head of Tennessee’s Works Progress Administration throughout the Great Depression (the NA stand for Nashville). Other codes reference the name of the airport itself, like MDW for Chicago Midway International or JFK for John F. Most IATA codes are derived from the first three letters of an airport’s city, like MIA for Miami International or DEN for Denver International. The IATA later standardized these three-letter codes in the 1960s. Why are airport codes three letters?īack in the 1930s, pilots began referring to airports using the National Weather Service’s two-letter city identification system.īy the 1940s, however, the amount of airports in the US was outgrowing the number of available NWS codes, so the airlines expanded to a three-letter code system, often adding X to previously coded airports (i.e. The less common four-letter ICAO codes are used to refer to airports that haven’t been given an IATA code they are also used by air traffic control officials. IATA codes are also assigned to bus, rail, helicopter, and ferry terminals that codeshare with airlines for ticketing and baggage transfers. IATA codes are three-letter codes used to refer to the majority of commercial airports worldwide. There are two main types of airport codes: IATA (International Air Transport Association) and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). What are the different types of airport codes? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |