Airport codes, easy as A-B-C

Published on 6th January 2016 at 10:15

Some of them are pretty easy to understand, MEL is Melbourne, SYD is Sydney and PER is Perth.

Every airport on the Qantas network and around the world can be identified by a unique three letter abbreviation.

Originally, these started off as two letters but due to the growth in aviation and of course the number of airports, three letters were used.

You can usually work out your destination by the code, but there are some tricky ones.

Did you know the code for Vancouver (where Qantas operates seasonal services in winter and summer) is YVR? VR is an abbreviation for Vancouver and all Canadian airport codes have the letter Y placed in front them.

What about CGK? Well that’s the main airport in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta and it’s code is derived from Cengkareng – a local district near the airport.

And across Australia there’s MOV for Moranbah, CNJ for Cloncurry and OOL for the Gold Coast.

Things get a little more strange around the world with Dumatubin Airport in the Kai Islands of Indonesia called LUV and Sioux City Gateway Airport goes by the code SUX.

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