ORD Stands for Orchard: A History of Airport Codes
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- Last summer I was flying to the UK when I met a family flying from Auckland to London. They were trying to fly from Auckland to London. They had gotten to Los Angeles, where they were supposed to get a direct flight to London Heathrow. But that flight got canceled and they had to get another itinerary, which they thought, was routed through Florida. Imagine their surprise when they wound up next to lake Michigan.
Airport codes website: airportcod.es/
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Script by THG
#history #thehistoryguy #Airtravel
The code for the Toronto Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario, Canada is YYZ. When the guys from the Canadian progressive rock trio Rush were writing an instrumental piece for their 1981 album Moving Pictures they needed a title. Drummer Neil Peart suggested YYZ, as whenever he saw this on his ticket or luggage he knew it meant he was headed home. The title was approved and a new opening riff was added to the song. It begins with a pattern played on the crotales (bell-like tone produced by small, flat, tuned discs) that mimics the Morse code radio beacon emitted by the airport to signify which airport aircraft are homing in on.
I searched the comments looking for a Rush fan. Didn't have to look too far.🤘
Ding ba ding ding ding ba ding ding ding ding ba ba Ding ba ding ding ding ba ding ding ding ding ba ba Ding ba ding ding ding ba ding ding ding ding ba ba …. 😂
When THG started on Canadian codes starting with “Y” I thought here we go, he’s going to mention “YYZ” and Rush, only to talk about Montreal instead.
@@christopherdivirgilio9861 Smiling and nodding too! As a RUSH LIFER since April of 1975, I knew there would be "A Family Member(s) here in the audience of The History Guy! Cheers Bruddah
@@adamkernen965 🤣 Gotta Love The Ding Ba Ding!
"..presumably because of the presence of actual orchards." Golly, I love this guy's dry humor!
I still have my bag tag from the last time I visited Fukuoka. Because, yes, I am childish.
I spent 23 years as an air traffic controller, and thus am very familiar with many airport codes and identifiers. I got accustomed to idiosyncrasies like Orlando being MCO and Newark being EWR, and to this day when I hear the name of some towns I automatically think of the identifier rather than the town's actual spelling (Winslow, Arizona will always be INW to me). But in all those 23 years, all those hours of entering flight plans and route changes and making sure a flight was really going to LSV (Las Vegas, New Mexico) and not LAS (Las Vegas, Nevada), I never, ever noticed that none of the identifiers began with W or N.
You learn something new every day.
LSV is Nellis Air Force Base, LVS is Las Vegas New Mexico :)
@@Hughes757 Oops! I've been out of the game too long...Thanks for the correction.
As another commenter noted, there are some 'N' airports out there from before 'N' got reserved from the Navy. The original main airport in New Orleans (before MSY was built) is still NEW, for example. And, of course, IATA doesn't care about the U.S. Navy, so Nassau is NAS, Tokyo - Narita is NRT, etc.
Or NKC for Nouakchott!
As a former Dispatcher, pilot and various other air-related roles, the IATA and ICAO codes have been my stock in trade for may adult life. Have been a fan of THG for months and now he’s really hitting close to home for me.
Keep up the great stories please.
I've flown over 1 million miles in my lifetime and by now and by default instead of the name of the city, I always think in airport codes as well!
The history of ORD was my favorite part
As a former Airline Pilot, I found this episode very enjoyable. Thanks.
As it so happens, I still have an ORD luggage tag from 1967 that was on my sea bag when I attended Hospital Corps school at Great Lakes Naval Training Center.
I grew up in Park Ridge, IL near O'Hare Field and remember the old Douglas-Chicago, C-54 "Skymaster" plant as it still existed up until about 1965 before the facility was demolished. A next-door neighbor talked about sometime after the end of WWII of being able to play a game of indoor softball in a portion of the empty aircraft plant as that's how large the facility was. By the way, in 1946 the Douglas-Chicago machinery and many surplus C-54 parts were shipped to the aircraft company, Canadair, in Montreal, Quebec. Canadair used the former Douglas machines and parts to produce their own version of the "Skymaster" known as the DC-4M "Northstar." The main difference between the American version and the Canadian one was that the American version was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-2000 radial piston engines whereas the Canadian was powered by four of the famous Rolls Royce Merlin in-line piston engines (the Merlin powered iconic WWII aircraft such as the Supermarine "Spitfire," the North American P-51 "Mustang" and the Avro Lancaster bomber).
The northeast corner of the orchard place field stored nazi X-planes like the ME 262 after capture and testing following the war.
Good to see a fellow Park Ridgian! My parents and grandparents grew up there. I lived in Rolling Meadows for 6 years, then AZ for two, and in P.R. for 20 years until moving back to AZ. Park Ridge was a great, but boring place to grow up! (I was 10 to 30 years old living there). I remember the jets seemed like they were landing on our roof sometimes.
@@61rampy65 "the jets seemed like they were landing on our roof sometimes," yes, back when the jetliners were much noisier than today's. I lived on the east side of Park Ridge and consequently they weren't quite as loud as for those living further west nearer to O'Hare. The prop airliners such as DC-6s, Constellations and Convairliners actually had rather pleasant sounds versus the jets.
Having worked for United Airlines for a decade (1986-1996), after my dad worked there for 32 years, this has always been a topic of keen interest for me. I love hearing all the back stories on how airfields and airports were originally named. History, well done!
Best...CZcams...video...ever... -Sincerely, An airline employee of 25 years.
I watched just to hear what you would say about MSY - Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. You were spot on.
Me too!
ICAO and IATA are normally pronounced as words by people from the industry (/ˌaɪˈkeɪˌoʊ/ and /aɪˈɑːtə/), and not as individual letters.
Great video! 👍🏻
100%. I am surprised someone that supposedly researches never found that out. Everyone in the travel industry never spells out the individual letters but pronounced it as a word :iata. I’ve know that since I started traveling in my teens 40 years ago.
What got New Zealanders confused?
Well, they call themselves kiwis, a bird that don't fly, so when the subject is airport...
I’m a Kiwi helicopter pilot. So some of us can fly! 😂
Have you Aussie blood by any chance? 😄
Quite possibly a NZer was the first to fly..en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pearse
Tampa International (FL) has the very logical TPA. However local new always calls it TIA for Tampa International Airport. So occasionally someone books their flight to Tirana International Airport in Albania. Your channel uses THG which you failed to mention is Thangool Airport in Australia.
I hate when people call TPA TIA and often I see people think SRQ is either SRO or SAR
I hate it when I accidentally fly from Miami to Tampa via the Balkans and the outback. 😂
Small correction: There are a few civilian airport identifiers that do begin with N, such as NEW (New Orleans Lakefront. No air carriers fly there), though the vast majority’s of N’s , are Navy fields.
And as a side note, the original identifier for Kennedy was IDL( part of the airport’s land was bought from and built on , was Idlewild golf course. It was changed to KIA(Kennedy Inlt Airport)within a month of Kennedy’s assassination. Then by the late 60s , the news, especially tv nightly news , constantly referring the the number of soldiers “killed in action” on a daily basis, and the associated horrors, the identifier was changed to JFK. Nice vid!
I think NEW got its code before N became reserved for the Navy. The reservation of 'N' is, for example, why Nashville is BNA and Norfolk is ORF. (On a side note, it seems ironic to me that Norfolk of all places wasn't able to get NOR or similar because of the Navy - considering how closely tied Norfolk is to the Navy.) NEW is a quite old airport, though, previously the main airport in New Orleans. Of course, IATA obviously doesn't reserve N for the U.S. Navy, so Nassau is NAS, Toyko - Narita is NRT, etc.
I live just down the road from "NQX", the naval air station at Boca Chica.
Living in NYC my entire life, I knew its previous name, but didn't know it was called KIA for a few years. I always thought it went straight to JFK. Thanks for clearing that up.
Well, JFK was KIA by LHO (or was it the CIA…)
I believe North Perry airfield in Miramar, Fl was a Navy training field during WW II. It's identifier in the late 60's/early 70's when I flew into it as a civilian field, was NPW. We jokingly called it "North Perry Windmeadow".
The History Guy can make anything interesting.
Maybe a video having something to do with paint drying? Let's challenge The History Guy!
@@christopherlynch3314 good lord, somewhere online (Quora maybe) I wrote a whole diatribe about how to properly apply and dry paint. I’d totally watch a video about paint drying.
it's so true.... 😂
Glad you got to MSY. Quite a story. And on that note, the history of John Moisant and his remarkable sister, and aviator, Matilde Moisant deserve to be remembered...And the cat is Mademoiselle Fifi, a pioneer in feline aviation, who often accompanied him on his flights.
Bravo! If you’re correct that would make an episode.
The Rush instrumental piece, "YYZ," gets its title from the code for Toronto's airport. The band would hear the Morse letters as they flew in or see the letters on their luggage tags at the end of tours as a signal that they were coming home. The introduction to the instrumental is the Morse code for YYZ.
I was surprised to hear my hometown in your video (ICT). I was a travel agent for almost 2 years, and went to a tech school for travel and tourism. I left the job in '98, and the industry has completely changed since 9/11, except for the airport codes. During high school, I began my love of travel, the travel school was a breeze. I had a later job in a call center, where we had outsourced the customer service line to Manila, with a company name of ICT, but I was one of very few people to make the ironic connection.
The Wichita airport did change its name recently from Mid-Continent to Wichita Dwight Eisenhower National airport.
Professional pilot approved! 2 US states don't use the prefix of K. HI and AK. PHNL (Honolulu) PANC (Anchorage), for example.
I just landed at ORD
One of my aviation bucket list items is to fly my Musketeer to an airport whose ICAO code starts with something other than C or K. The nearest candidates (I live in B.C.) are PAKT and MMTJ.
P for Pacific region
@@marsgal42 if you ever do a coast to coast trip across Canada, consider a stop at LFVM…. Technically France but only about 20km offshore from Newfoundland! It would be a unique one for the logbook!
@@theRICKbowman If I lived in eastern Canada the nearest candidates would indeed be LFVM/LFVP and MYGF.
I recently flew (commercially) from Vancouver to London. My Musketeer could just about do it via the usual North Atlantic route (CYYR-BGBW-BIRK-EGPC). Easily with a ferry tank.
I worked for Continental Express Airlines -- the regional carrier for Continental Airlines -- in Victoria, Texas, IATA code VCT. All of our flights were from and to Houston Intercontinental Airport, IATA code IAH. I lost count of how many times passenger luggage went astray because a baggage handler in IAH put the passenger's luggage onto a cart labeled ICT instead of a cart labeled VCT and the luggage ended up in Wichita, Kansas.
I have been a pilot since 1962. I retired from the airlines in 2007. I thought I knew the stories behind Airport codes. Boy, you showed me I only knew about ten percent. Very interesting. Thanks, History Guy,
McCoy Air Force Base is pretty much forgotten in Orlando history today. The former SAC base that was home to dozens of B-52s and a scary number of atomic warheads is mostly plowed under the tarmac and hangers of today’s MCO. I would lay odds that most kids that grew up in the area probably only know of the base as Orlando International Airport. It would have saved so much in confusion if they had simply changed the code to OIA. Adding to the confusion, Orlando’s business airport (located about five miles north of the international airport) was once named ‘Herndon Airport’, but is now called ‘Orlando Executive Airport’. And it’s IATA code is ORL.
At least someone got one right.
The MCO code was already assigned to McCoy AFB, so why change it. All USAF, USN, USMC, and USA bases (flying) have IATA codes and they will not change them if converted to civilian use.
I've already memorized MCO, please don't change it now!
@@MrScott1171 Why change it? Because it is no longer for military use. The three letter designation is obsolete and confusing to civilians who now use the airport. Streamlining the code to something far more logical (instead of some antiquated reference to an orchard that hasn’t existed in decades, say) will help prevent the mistakes that The History Guy pointed out. Will it cause confusion to people used to the current system? Yes, but that will pass and people will get used to a much more understandable three letter code. I still put OIA down when booking tickets to my hometown, only to remember that I wasn’t going to Brazil (where the code is assigned currently). ORD can finally be CHI or even OHA and far fewer people will gripe with a new and understandable system.
The biggest problem with the current system is that there are over 17,500 three letter combinations possible, but more than 41,000 airports worldwide (13,000 in the US alone). What do you do for 23,000 airports when you run out of three-letter combinations?
I lived next to MCO in the early 70's. Went to McCoy elementary.
Thanks Walt Disney. F#*$!n rat.
More interesting history about O'Hare: Their namesake son, Butch O'Hare was the son of Al Capone's Lawyer "Easy Eddie" O'Hare.
Pannama City Florida (KECP) is Located on Florida's "Emerald Coast" Thus, Emerald Coast Panama City (ECP)
I once worked at the Seattle office of an international freight forwarder which shipped freight by both air and sea; I worked in the Air Exports department and obviously most of our freight went from SEA. We were the only office worldwide that called sea freight "Ocean Exports" rather than "Sea Exports."
Of course, because all of your exports were SEA exports.
Nashville International Airport has the designator of BNA. The B stands for Berry Field, the original name for a military air base that was already there. The NA is presumably for Nashville.
Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) is DCA, not DCI. Also interesting is the three letter code for areas with multiple commercial airports. So you can search for WAS to find flights to all three Washington area airports (DCA, IAD, and BWI)
I caught that too!
Some large metro areas have dummy overlay codes (like WAS for the metro DC airports and NYC for the metro New York airports), however, that is not always true. For example, In San Francisco, there's SFO, OAK, and SJC (San Jose), but no overlay code to my knowledge.
It was also renamed in 1998, not 1992. It's still called National by most people who are from the region.
@@gregpatton
Even many of us from other parts of the country still call it National.
@@ajs11201 I use CHI all the time when trying to find the cheapest possible flight out of either ORD (Chicago O'Hare) or MDW (Chicago Midway).
As an old-timer, I am often caught explaining when calling a taxi to Orlando International Airport I will say I am going to McCoy. After explaining they will often say "So that is what MCO stands for."
The airfield at the South Pole is commonly referred to as NPX, which makes a whole lot more sense for the North Pole if there were an airfield there.
The airfield Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station doesn't have an IATA code. It has an ICAO code, NZSP.
Amundsen-Scott has the New Zealand - South Pole NZSP designation. It does not need an IATA three letter designation as no scheduled airlines fly into this airport. Cheers
Columbus Ohio: CMH (Port Columbus Airport, now John Glenn International). The airport was originally built and owned by the City of Columbus as part of the first transcontinental service (Pennsylvania Railroad from NY to Columbus, then TAT by air from Columbus to Wyanoka, OK; Waynoka to Clovis, NM via Santa Fe Railway, then TAT again from Clovis to Los Angeles. Port Columbus was given the code CMH for "Columbus Municipal Hangar."
Columbus was definitely an early participant in the airplane industry (sadly to the ultimate detriment of our beautiful train station) and as a kid I always assumed that CMH was a combination of letters from Columbus, Ohio. It wasn't until the internet age when I discovered it was really "Columbus Municipal Hanger", and that's what I often call the airport these days :)
I live in Knoxville. Our airport code is TYS. For the Mcghee Tyson airforce base which was there long before they but the commercial airport there as well.
It was originally on Sutherland Avenue and was named after Charles McGhee Tyson, pilot killed in WWI. His mother gave the land I think, and stipulated the airport name. West High is on the original airfield.
Reminds me of a story. I was at San Jose California airport near the ticket counter when a lady was trying to talk to the ticket lady in a foreign language the ticket lady didn't understand. It was German. I know a little German so tried to help. Turns out the poor lady was trying to get to San Jose Costa Rica, not California. Problem was the person who booked her travel. Fortunately the airline could get her there and didn't charge her any extra. It was a business trip so not a huge deal.
Do you know the way to San Jose, I've been away so long, I might go wrong and lose my way.
I'm glad MSY made the vid. New Orleans' airport also straddles two parishes, neither of which are Orleans Parish. 😆
I just wish he'd mentioned that "NEW" is still around - New Orleans Lakefront Airport.
My goodness, I have always wondered why New Orleans was MSY. Super interesting episode. I love this channel!
While true that there is no NYC airport code, NYC is used as a city code. It is common for multi-airport cities to have a city code so that you can search for flights to any airport serving that city in stead of making multiple searches for one airport at a time. Other well-known examples are LON for London and PAR for Paris, and there are many more.
I love your work, but in my mind, the Toronto airport code, YYZ, is the most iconic and probably the only one that has a song named after it (with a rhythm based on YYZ in Morse code) on Rush's Moving Pictures album. Toronto is their home airport.
Back in my working days I spent my time, mostly, as a Shipping and Receiving clerk. The companies I worked for shipped goods all over the world and whether by land of air all good s shipped must have the merchandise identified. When shipping by air I would use the IATA (pronounced as eye-at-ta by many) codes. At one company I ended up saving my company around $50,000 a month in hazardous shipping fees due to a corrosive product in one of the medical kits we had developed. When I discovered there was a loophole IATA code for the concentration of the product by how many parts per million that could be safely shipped and not needing the hazardous declaration I talked to one of the main researchers and explained what was going on he worked at getting the kit re-certified using the lower density of product. I ended up getting a nice letter of commendation for that plus a good payraise.
Another interesting quirk of the IATA/ICAO coding: Key West, FL in IATA is EYW, which seems random. When you add the K from ICAO, it becomes KEYW, which makes perfect sense.
that's however far from universal.
For example Amsterdam Schiphol has IATA code SPL (for Schiphol) but ICAO code EHAM (Europe-Holland-Amsterdam).
Similarly Paris Charles de Gaulle has IATA code CDG (Charles de Gaulle) but ICAO code LFPG (Southern Europe-France-Paris-de Gaulle).
In the UK London Heathrow has IATA code LHR (London Heathrow) but ICAO code EGLL (Europe-Great Britain-London-London).
Then again, London Gatwick has an ICAO code that bears little resemblance to its location, EGKK.
ICAO codes derive historically from radio stations, and in areas with several stations of course most couldn't have a geographically significant name. And the UK just started out naming its radio stations with double letters, from EGAA through EGZZ.
Very interesting and informative video. A few observations: 1) ICAO codes consist of four letters, not digits. 2) The first letter of ICAO codes is a regional identifier, used in every country, except the USA (K) and Canada (C). For example, North and Central America have “M” as the first letter. The second letter identifies the country (Mexico = MM, Nicaragua = MN, Costa Rica = MR). Other region identifiers include Northern Europe = “E”; Southern Europe = “L” and so on. 4) the IATA number codes are generally used in airline and cargo business and accounting (e.g. ticket numbers)
Knowing the codes and keeping an eye on the tags affixed to your checked bags used to be helpful for preventing lost bags.
Fun fact, German civil airport ICAO codes begin with ED ("northern" Europe airport codes begin with E, then D for Deutschland), so EDDS is Stuttgart, EDDM is Munich. However, military airports begin with ET (ET was supposedly the code for former DDR airports), so ETAR is Ramstein Air Base, ETAD is Spangdahlm Air Base, and ETAS was the now defunct Sembach Air Base (the airfield part of the base was not just closed, but demolished). The US military weather hub for Europe and Africa was located at Sembach, so weather bulletins that originated from there have the code ETAS (as the WMO uses the ICAO codes). When the weather hub was relocated to Kapaun Air Station (no airfield nor helipad, therefore no ICAO code), ETAS was retained for bulletins issued by them.
Another fun fact, "southern" Europe ICAO codes begin with L, so Spain is LE (E for España), Italy is LI, Turkey is LT, and, although being surrounded by Middle Eastern country codes, Israel is LL and Palestine LV (Lebanon is OL, Syria is OS, Jordan is OJ, and Egypt is HE [because NE africa is H]). Anyway, for some reason, US military bases in southern Europe all have both the Lx code, but also KQ codes, which are used for US military issued weather bulletins. Northen European bases use the regular code (Ex) for their bulletins.
Third fun fact, France is considered "southern" for airport codes, so theirs begin with LF.
Fourth fun fact, all southern European country codes were used up, so Kosovo got BK. B is for the North Atlantic, and only two were used (BG for Greenland, BI for Iceland), and it's unlikely that all the B's will ever get used.
Last fun fact, not all of the US uses the ICAO K prefix, and I'm not talking about far-flung territories either... Alaska and Hawaii use the international region and location format, so Alaska is PA, Hawaii is PH. Of course, basically all the north Pacific (save for the Northwest) was at one time US territories, so P almost effectively belongs to the US as well. The Northwest Pacific is generally Rx (RJ Japan, RK South Korea, etc. Note North Korea gets Z like China).
Source: I was a meteorologist at Kapaun, having to remember these idiosyncrasies and issued bulletins that likely were gibberish to most, but were a piece to some sort of military intelligence puzzle.
You may wonder, if ORD is Chicago and Orlando is MCO, does any airport use the code ORL? The answer is yes, Orlando Executive Airport - which used to be Orlando Municipal Airport, the city’s primary airfield while MCO was still an Air Force base.
I would love to know how they determined Sioux City, Iowa's airport. The airport code is SUX
I'm not sure, but it's not the only place with an airport code ending in X. Los Angeles is LAX and Portland is PDX.
Because it does. Lol. I remember a few years back the city wanted to change the code but the feds said no.
@@rhapsody710 Yes. After I watched the video I saw that places like LA just added an X when 3 letters were required. I imagine Sioux City did the same. It's still a pretty funny code.
😂
That's where the factory was that made the 6000 series of cars for Robocop.
As an Air Force ROTC cadet at the University of Florida in the sixties, I was part of a group driven down to McCoy AFB for physicals. After graduation I remember the news story about McCoy being closed, then later becoming the civilian airport for Disney World in Orlando.
In 2015, to save money on a trip to Portland (PDX), my wife and I drove from Jacksonville to MCO to get a cheaper flight, then drove back from MCO to Jacksonville on returning.
Incidentally, the code JAX originally referred to the Imeson Airport just north of the Trout River (a subsidiary of the St. Johns), which was the northern border of the “classic” city of Jacksonville. The current airport, several miles further north of the Trout River, adopted the code and Imeson was shut down, to become the Imeson Industrial Park, with no air access.
The main commercial airport in Fresno, CA has the code FAT. Several years ago, in an effort to upgrade its image, the airport added a couple flights to destinations outside the USA and tried to get the code changed to FYI - Fresno Yosemite International. They changed the name of the airport but couldn't get the code changed.
Don’t forget Sioux City… SUX.
@@kevino.7348 They’re proud of the code, and sell SUX merchandise at the airport!
@@briansantigian2240 there are some flights to Mexico so, yes international.
An old, and likely apocryphal, story tells of the overweight woman's reaction to a airline agent writing "FAT" on the tag to her luggage.
FAT stands for Fresno Air Terminal
I love you history guy!!
I spent 10 yrs working in the airline industry as ground staff Lance and I found this fascinating. Thank you very much for some very informative aviation history!
Calgary, Alberta, Canada's airport code is YYC. In a funny twist, some Calgarians will sometimes refer to their city as YYC. In the early 2000's there was a restaurant & bar in Toronto that used it's airport code YYZ as it's name. I once had to fly to the small northern Ontario town of Wawa & was amused to learn their code was YXZ; about as random as one gets.
I grew up near YZR. Sarnia, Ontario. Zarnia I guess? I assume this is one of the ones that refers to their radio frequency.
Ah, one of the great mysteries of life finally explained. Good job enjoyed it...
Good Friday morning from Ft Worth TX History Guy and everyone watching. Happy Father's Day to all dads
If there's one subject that can tangle anyone's hair, it is this one. How could they confuse and yet streamline it all at the same time is history that deserves to be told. Thanx THG. Now go have a drink.
The Brewers proudly wear the airport designation on their hats MKE.
worth noting about new orleans. before MSY, Sushan Lakefront Airport was the main airport for the city, and it’s code is NEW. as far as I can tell it is the only airport in the country that starts with N and never served as a naval base.
I know it strange but I think this is VERY INTERESTING.
I always liked the code for Harrisburg, PA. "MDT". The reason for this is its actually located in Middletown, PA, just southeast of Harrisburg. Fun fact, it's formerly known as Olmstead Air Force Base and is an alternate landing spot for Air Force 1.
Similarly I'm told Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is AVP due to being adjacent to the small town of Avoca.
The reason for the 200 mile rule is that is the original range of en-route ATC radar systems. The high altitude ATC system is divided up into centers that at one time had separate codes to track aircraft and two airports with a similar id in the same system could cause confusion, whereas the next center had it’s own separate data set, beyond 200 miles was considered OK.
To add to the confusion, the first electronic aids to navigation which formed the “highways in the sky” were usually put in the center of the airport. Many had to be moved off airport as expansion and construction effected the line of sight reception. Each VOR had it’s own identifier which was the same as the airport identifier but was not always at the airport, sometimes up to 5 miles away. These identifiers were eventually changed and with the addition of GPS navigation, thousands of new “waypoints” now are used - each with it’s own 5 letter “pronounceable” name with no vowels. It is quite a task to name a new waypoint and in fact there is some duplication across the world. Pilots have to be diligent to select the correct waypoint when programming their navigation systems even today.
I’m home at GEG for Geiger (old air base) in Spokane. Sometimes you see SIA on things. What’s fun if you go to Felts field (small planes) and it’s code if SFF but the building has Spokane International Airport chiseled in stone. I guess before the new commercial airport converted from Geiger it had flights to Canada - hence international
Ramp rat here - one of the guys working on the field (or tarmac as the media loves to call it) - loved the history! From an aviation guy though I will say hearing IATA and ICAO pronounced as four syllables each was foreign to me; IATA is generally pronounced "eye-at-uh" and ICAO as either "icky-oh" or "ick-cow" within the industry when referring to specifications set forth by the two bodies.
In the FAA, we refer to ICAO as Eye-Kay-Oh.
I remember it as Eye-Cow.
Back in the Saddle Again Naturally!
You should do a show on the 5 letter codes used to identify fixes in airspace. They can be quite humorous
Ever taken the DDRTH, XXWNG, CHUWY, JOBBA, or SAABR departures out of Denver? :)
@@heraldtimHow about ITAWT, ITAWA, PUDDY, TTATT, IDEED? Which I remember seeing once.
@@heraldtim probably
...and perhaps the why and the how of the airspace fix codes being renamed, with exactly five letters, in the 1980's.
There was an airway intersection (fix) in Arizona, near Casa Grande, that used to be called, "TOLTEC" INTERSECTION, which referred to a town directly below it.
In the early 80's, it was changed to "TOTEC" INTERSECTION, in accordance with a new FAA mandate that all airspace fixes in the U.S., that were not navigational aids (i.e.: VORs, NDBs, and the like), had to be renamed to five-letter names. "VICKSBURG", became "VICKO", etc.
This was because, as the FAA's Air Traffic Control network was being upgraded into computers and their software, the reduction was necessary due to constraints on available memory in the "state-of-the-art" computers of the day.
And...even though today's computers could easily deal with fix names of almost any length, the policy of five-letter fix code names continues...
The code FAT (Fresno Air Terminal) is not very popular with some travelers. It's called Fresno Yosemite International now. No matter what you name an airport the three letter identifier never changes.
@@briansantigian2240For being called FAT, it sounds awfully thin.
Mr Bear gave us the background for Nashville International, BNA being identified by Berry Field, which was likely due to so many previous airfields, Hampton, Blackwood, and the first airfield with airline service, Sky Harbor (which was actually south of Nashville in Rutherford county). The local airfield, John C Tune Airport, handles a great deal of helicopter traffic, with the television news stations keeping their aircraft there. It does not have an IATA code, but it does have an ICAO code (KJWN) and an FAA LID (JWN).
As retired airfreight forwarder I found this fun.
This episode makes me thankful for Australia’s more sensible capital city IATA codes: SYD, BNE, MEL, ADL, PER, HBA, DRW and CBR.
CGPGrey did a video on this a while ago that goes into the more technical details of things. Plus he compiled a list of goofy IATA codes at the end (OMG, LOL, etc). Worth checking out after this.
Bnashville!
Perhaps your best video ever where I can say you told us everything we wanted to know about a subject, and more!
Interestingly, JFK was originally IDL for Idlewild. Which was the name of the golf course that predated the airfield. Later it was renamed Kennedy International Airport in honor of the President.
The initial code Kennedy Airport was KIA.
Of course, since KIA is short for killed in action, this was changed to JFK
People insist (often loudly) that there was an airport named Idlewild, even though there wasn't.
There's a holdup in the Bronx. Brooklyn broken out in fights. There's a traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights. There's a scout troop short a child, Kruschev's due at Idlewild...
@@DerrickOil Car 54, where are you?
MIA (Missing in Action) is still the code for Miami International.
Thank you, THG, another fascinating one - and a nice reminder of how many seemingly mundane little rules and conventions there are beneath the surface making our society actually work, but unless we work in that area we probably rarely think of. Reminds me of the idea to standardise items like nuts and bolts, another thing we kind of take for granted, but without someone coming up with the notion, the world would run a lot less smoothly (of course anyone who has just arrived in Wellington to find their luggage has gone to Puerto Rico will, rightly, roll their eyes at the idea of "smoothly"!)
Thank you, great video as always.
As an old ATC, I found this very interesting. Two other examples are London Heathrow is IATA LHR but ICAO EGGL and Frankfurt Germany is FRA but ICAO EDDF. Go figure.
You never cease to amaze me with how interesting you can make, otherwise mundane seeming subjects, be. I’ve always liked little bits of odd information but your delivery and storytelling just punches everything up. 😄
Chicago O'Hare airport ORD was my great grandfathers orchard Field, which by means of imminent domain the government basically took his property where he ended up taking his life. My grandma's sister found his body in the basement
This should be the top comment.
I'm so sorry.
A tragic story I had never heard. I'm so sorry.
So sad...I'm so sorry 😞
Imminent domain is wrong especially when they stole your great grandfather's property. I'm very sorry that this happened to your family. We are not free and never have been. 😢
Thanks for another memorable episode!
Not codes per se, but once in the AF, pax sevices put 3 pax on our plane who were going to the East Coast on our C-9, which was going to the West Coast. They thought they were going to Bolling AFB, whose runway had been closed for over 20 years, while we were going to Boeing Field, in Seattle. We figured out the mistake when they were confused by crop irrigation circles below the airplane (Kansas). One guy had a port call for Europe out of NJ, the next day.
WOW! What a wild series of absurdities! =) Great job =)
The code for Spokane International Airport, in Spokane, Washington, is GEG. It comes from Geiger Air Field. Decades ago it was a small airport called sunset airport. The Army bought it in 1941 and renamed it Geiger Field, for Major Harold Geiger, who was an army aviation pioneer. It served as a training base for B-17 bombers during WWII, Boeing being less than an hour away (by modern jet aircraft). It hosted ADC interceptor units during the cold war.
It is also only 4 miles away from Fairchild Air Force Base, a former SAC base for B-52s and now the largest refueling base in the Air Force.
Spokane International Airport (GEG) is a small airport less than 300 miles from Seatac (Seattle/Tacoma International Airport, or SEA). No large planes serve GEG but it is capable of handling 747s.
There's one that I read about only last week - Podgorica Airport in Montenegro has the code TGD as a holdover from the city's previous name, Titograd.
St. Petersburg, Russia still uses “LED” for Leningrad.
In a reverse situation, after the fall of Saddam Hussein the code for Baghdad’s airport was changed from “SDA” to “BGW”.
A curiosity that gets even more curious as you learn the most curious thing of all...what kind of logic is used when they come up with all these things! What a fun little corner of history to explore! Thanks!!!!
I live in Southern California, near Long Beach Airport, which is logically identified as LGB. I'm not too far from Orange County John Wayne Airport, which is SNA. I once asked an airport worker why the designation was SNA and he told me that the airport used to be Santa Ana Airport; now it makes sense.
Thanks for covering Canadian codes, those are the most puzzling.
I wish you had mentioned some legacy codes still used:
LED: St. Petersburg (Leningrad)
MAA: Chennai (Madras)
PEK: Beijing (Peking)
SGN: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Louisville has airport code SDF, because it was Standiford Field, named for Elisha Standiford, a Louisville business man and proponent of transportation improvements in Louisville.
Detroit has airport code DTW. The prior primary airport for Detroit, Detroit City, has airport code DET.
Detroit Metropolitan was owned by the Wayne County Road Comission. Now it's the Wayne County Airport Commission.
So, DTW stands for Detroit-Wayne.
NYC is an airport code, which refers to all NYC airports, JFK, LGA and EWR, similarly LON refers to all London airports, LHR, LGW, LCY, STN, LTN, and SEN
I love ediing photos while sipping coffee from my History Guy mug listening to the newest History Guy!
You mentioned BWI for Baltimore, which used to be BAL. BWI was already taken by Bewani Airport in Papua New Guinea, but that airport wanted a route to Honolulu. The US authorities said they could have it only if they gave up BWI to Baltimore. So BWI switched to BWP in Papua New Guinea and Baltimore became BWI. Perhaps that was a good thing because one time my brother's bags turned up at Bradley Field near Hartford, CT, known as BDL, which bags were tagged BAL but misread. I wonder how many bags mistakenly went to New Guinea or to Baltimore when that changeover occurred. Going to Batman, Turkey? The airport there is now BAL.
Orlando International Airport is MCO because it was McCoy Air Force Base till 1975. The ORL airport is now called Orlando Executive Airport and is the smaller of the two.
The Atlanta airport is easy. ATL. It's been through a bunch of name changes over the years. It's currently a mouth-full; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Fun fact, there are 12 airports in Metro Atlanta. 12!
I remember learning city codes with a bunch of different mnemonics. Louisville, KY is SDF, for instance (Standiford Field) but I learned it as "Some Dead Frenchman" (King Louis)...those little tips were so helpful back in the day.
Great vlog as always! I worked for SAS/SK, as you say in the video we also had city center codes for the SAS ticket office in Paris had the company Mail code PAR/HZSK. Fun fact: all airlines Telex reg lost luggage end with… You guessed it, LL. In Norway we have cities with simular names that are far apart. On the southern shores we have the city of Kristiansand and also along the coast an hours flight time we have the city of Kristiansund. The postal service got fed up with the chaos and added an S behind Kristiansand S and an N behind Kristiansund N for North and South. The two cities also had to have the IATA codes. In the south it was a land airport before WW 2 so it was KRS. When Kristiansund N opened its airport on July 1st 1970 KRN was taken, it is Kiruna in Sweden, so it became KSU instead. People still buy tickets to the to cities and mix them up to this day. As luck will have it no pilots have yet to make that mistake the two ICAO codes are ENCN and ENKB. On Christmas Eve in 1982 a passenger walked off the plane at MOL, 50km from KSU. The trip started in Germany and he wanted to fly to Moldova! He got their in time for New years! Lol!
As always, Lance makes history interesting. I worked for the US Postal Service for a few years and had most US 3-letter airport codes memorized that were destinations for mail bags. I knew what many of the codes meant but had never delved into some of the more esoteric designations (like ORD for O'Hare International actually being short for "Orchard").
My journey from DTW to OAK and subsequently from SUU to OKO to TSN was not a happy one but from TSN to OKO to SUU and subsequently from SFO to DTW a year later was outstanding.
I'm commenting before even watching. This is a great topic! Always wondered about 'ORD'. Thank you for all the talented works.
Excellent!
My three favorite airports are DFW, KBP and FRK!!! 🤠👍
Like New York City, Chicago has 2 international airports that serve the area. Chicago O'Hare is the airport with the ORD code. Chicago Midway has the code MDW.
There is a CHI code- it is an overall code that allows travel agents to look at any flight in or out of either Chicago airport
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Does NYC have something similar set up for JFK and LGA, I wonder?
@@rhapsody710 yes- those overall codes are (confusingly) called “Area codes” and there is a NYC code that includes LGA, JFK and EWR flights.
The main airport in Louisville, Kentucky is… SDF because it was first named Standiford Field.
We had an exchange student from Korea living with us for a few years. One Christmas his flight home was canceled so they rebooked him. He was headed to the “new” Incheon airport, code ICN. The agent at the counter booked him to INC (Yinchuan) in China. None of us realized the mix up until he was already in the air. Thankfully someone met him in Beijing (layover) and got him to the correct connection.
Thank you The History Guy. Airport codes is a fascinating story.
When I was starting out in the airline industry, I learned a lot of US codes by memorizing the airfields they were named for...and then there was New Orleans, which is very "MSY" after Mardi Gras.
Lol.
Living near O'Hare airport, I did some research a few years ago on Naval airfields used for training WWII pilots. They were referred to as OLF (Outer Landing Field) and were used in case of emergencies. I came across the history of O'Hare at that time. You could argue that the ORD designation is for ORcharD field or ORchard fielD or ORchard field - Douglas (as the plant and airfield came into existence at the same time). Interestingly, the recently completed air freight terminals at O'Hare sit directly on the footprint of the old Douglas plant. The old Air National Guard base sat in pretty much the same spot.
Thank you, because I always wondered why O'Hare was ORD.