Airport Codes Explained

Those letters on your baggage tag do mean something

They might look like Swahili to you, but airport codes do mean something to baggage handlers. They should also mean something to you because it can save a lot of frustration if you understand the lingo before booking your flight.

Airport codes identify the thousands of airlines, aircraft, airports, locations and countries worldwide and the accounting codes for documents and goods that go between them.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Organization for Standardization (IOS) are collectively responsible for assigning these codes, of which there are a few main types:

• Airline Codes (e.g., DL is the IATA's code for Delta)
• Airport Codes (e.g., ORD is the IATA code for Chicago O'Hare)
• Aircraft Codes (e.g., 320 is the IATA code for the Airbus A320)
• Country Codes (e.g., US is the IOS country code for the United States)
• Location Codes (e.g., GVA is the IATA code for Geneva; locations can also include bus stations, ferry ports, heliports and metropolitan areas, to name a few)

The most common codes that airline passengers might see are the airline, airport and aircraft codes. A passenger departing in Washington, D.C., might have AA, DCA and 744 on their baggage tag. That means they are flying with American Airlines, originating from Ronald Reagan Airport, on a Boeing 747-400 (passenger capacity).

The origin of airport and location codes - which can be quite confusing - can be traced to the National Weather Service (NWS) in the early part of the 20th century. The NWS used to tabulate data for cities and gave each one a two-letter identifier. So, when air travel exploded, existing airports put an X at the end of their identifier, hence LAX for Los Angeles International Airport. A government official then drafted the three-letter system we have in place today, which effectively gives 17,576 different combinations. This has further evolved to include four-digit identifiers with numbers in the code.