Simple Flying
Noah Cooperman
06 August 2024
It's easy to assume that airfield identifiers correlate with letters in the field's name: "JFK" because it's the initials of the late President after whom the airport is named; "MIA" because those are the first three letters in "Miami"; and "LAS" because that's the first half of "Las Vegas." Yet, it's actually way more complicated than that, involving at least three governing bodies with their own separate naming standards.
- The three governing bodies responsible for airfield codes are the FAA, IATA, and ICAO.
- IATA issues 3-letter codes for airfields and airports; ICAO assigns 4-letter codes for flight operations purposes.
- Airfield codes can't overlap, are not always intuitive, and changes are rare due to permanency concerns.
Read on: A Closer Look At How Airfields And Airports Are Designated In The United States (simpleflying.com)
