For those of us that have to fly (in airplanes that is :lol: ), we are all familar with those three letter airport codes. Many of them make perfect sense like MSP for Minneapolis St Paul, DEN for Denver, or BOS for Boston. But then there are others. While BIL for Billings MT is cool, why is Kailspel, MT FCA? LAX is reasonable but why are the other two LA area airports ONT and SNA? If you were to visit Toyota headquarters in Nogoya, it makes sense to book a ticket to NGO, but if you were going to Tokyo it's NRT? Or anywhere in Canada it's Yxx (xx being the other two letters). And how does MSY relate to New Orleans? OK here's the challenge, name an airport, its code and explain the meaning of the airport code. Here's a hint, the code is derived from the name of the airport and not necessarly the city associated to it. I know a quit a few, but not all by any means so I hope to pick up a little trivia from this as well. And, as a bonus question, what does the number 18 have in common with all airports worldwide?? Have fun!!!
ONT...is only vaguely consider "LA area" its actually in Ontario, CA making the abbreviation meaning rather obvious
ATW: AppleTon Wisconsin GRB: GReen Bay wi MKE: MilwauKee wi LSE: (lax was taken :lol LacrosSE wi IMT: Iron MounTain mi DTW: DeTroit Wayne airport, mi RDU: Raleigh-DUrham nc ORD: O'hare airport, chicago and crap. i forget washington dulles' code. those are some of the airports i frequented when i was on planes regularly. now... we prefer to drive
Good job Galaxee! Dulles is IAD, something like International Airport at Dulles, I think. Now, why is Wausau/Stevens Point CWA?
SNA is equally as rational as ONT. It is for John Wayne International Airport which is the major airport serving Orange County and the largest city adjacent to that airport is Santa aNA, California.
My Regulars FLL Ft Lauderdale, FL MIA Miami, FL PBI Palm Beach, FL LGA La Guardia (NYC) JFK NYC EWR Newark NJ HPN White Plains NY LHR London (Heathrow) tleonhar Does your "18" question have anything to do with the compas point names of runways? Runway 09 = Aircraft lands to the East Runway 18 = North Runway 27 = West Runway 36 = South Etc.
You are getting very close, yes it has to do with runway numbers. By the way, you have 18 and 36 reversed, 36 North, 18 South. Now, even if an airport does not have a runway 18, there is still a number 18 hidden somewhere.
I heard Chicago O'Hare's three letter designator, ORD, was for the word "orchard" because the airport was originally built in the location of an orchard.
[Edit] I did a little research to make sure that what I had originally typed was correct. I found that it wasn't entirely right so I'm fixing it. The airport was constructed in 1942-43 as a manufacturing plant for Douglas C-54s during World War II. The site was chosen for its proximity to the city and transportation. The two million square-foot (180,000 m²) factory needed easy access to the workforce of the nation's then-second-largest city, as well as its extensive railroad infrastructure. Orchard Place was a small pre-existing community in the area, and the airport was known during the war as Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. The facility was also the site of the Army Air Force's 803 Special Depot, which stored many rare or experimental planes, including captured enemy aircraft. [/Edit]
Here's a handy link. It's by no means complete, but it's interesting to see the list. Many of htem do not make any sense. http://www.expedia.com/daily/airports/AirportCodes.asp For example, why is Maui, Hawaii's airport OGG? Vail, Colorado... EGE Osaka, Japan... KIX Orlando, Florida... MCO Not sure why they are that way though.
CWA; Central Wisconsin Airport, located in Mosinee, WI., is approx. in the center of the state and centrally located between Wausau (Warsawr) and Stevens Point, WI.
heh. CWA. reminds me of the fifteen-minutes-of-local-fame band called "cheeseheads with attitude" you see by their name why they only had about 15 minutes. :lol:
