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Cracking the three-letter airport code.
When booking a flight, reading your trip’s itinerary, or looking at the tags on your checked baggage, you’ll notice three-letter codes that identify airports. Sometimes it makes sense: BOS is Boston, MIA is Miami. But how do you get MCO for Orlando? Often, especially in Canada, where every three-letter code begins with a “Y”, they are illogical abbreviations. For most of us, it is one of the mysteries of travel. I will try to dispel some of the secrecy and unravel this Da Vinci Code mystery of flight.
So why not CHI instead of ORD for one of the busiest airports on the planet? History, along with geographical locations, names of airports, and personal tributes — with politicians’ names ranked up there — are what these three letters cater to. Years ago, the National Weather Service devised a two-letter identification system (blame it on the weatherman) to keep a handle on weather throughout the United States. When aviation was at its infancy, airlines simply adopted the system. However, expansion meant that towns without weather stations needed codes as well, so IATA (International Air Transport Association) created three-letter identifiers for airports around the world. Canadian weather offices associated with airports used “Y,” which made them easy to identify as Canadian. For some airports, it is easy to decipher: YVR is Vancouver, YWG is Winnipeg, and YQB stands for Quebec City. But where did they get YYZ for Canada’s busiest airport, Toronto Lester B. Pearson? Pearson, by the way, was a Canadian prime minister. There is still some shade of doubt about its true origin, but Toronto’s original airport, located in the town of Malton, had been assigned YZ for its Morse code telegraph identifier.
Incidentally, Chicago’s ORD is derived from “Orchard Field,” and the airstrip’s moniker is a tribute to pilot Lieutenant Commander Edward O’Hare. Orlando’s MCO stemmed from McCoy Airforce base. It’s neat to know that FFA is for First Flight Airport in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.