This week in User Friendly Greg has been tasked with traveling to Iceplug, Newfoundland for some as yet unspecified task. In this episode he making an online flight reservation. Note all of the stops listed begin with Y.
In the US, airport symbols generally bear some relationship to the name of the airport. PHX for here in Phoenix for example, or SJC for San Jose California (SJO is San Jose Puerto Rico, as I was reminded when I blithely tried to make my own reservations without looking up the symbol for sure, and was shocked at the $750 price for a round trip instead of the expected $120)
Anyway, I had sort of assumed this was true the world over and using Orbitz to check I can see this is generally so – except for Canada. Looking at that string of letters in the cartoon, I haven’t a clue where all those intermediate stops are. How did this come to be? Did some bureaucrat in Ottawa figure this would be a good thing?
Airport codes are assigned by ICAO, the internation aviation governing body. I’m reasonably sure that they do all the assigning, and we don’t have too much of a choice of what they are.
I’m a pilot myself and it doesn’t bother a bit that all our codes are different from the actual city they’re in/around.
And the “y” for the airport is generally only for older and/or bigger airports. Many of the smaller/newer ones use just a (seemingly) random letter/number combination. But that’s not a 100% correct thing. There are one or two airports in my area that were obviously built during WW2, but don’t have the Y ident (The runways were built in a triangular pattern… If they’re like that, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they were built for the BCATP)
Every commercial airport in the world actually has TWO airport codes. There’s the three letter code we are all familiar with, called the IATA code (International Air Transport Association) and there’s the ICAO code (International Civil Aviation Organization), which has four letters.
The two codes may or may not have anything to do with each other. For example, London Heathrow has IATA code LHR, but ICAO code EGLL.
In the United States and Canada, a consistent approach was used. In the majority of cases, the IATA code is the same as the ICAO code without the first letter.
In the U.S., all ICAO codes begin with K, so Los Angeles International has ICAO code KLAX and IATA code LAX.
In Canada, al ICAO codes begin with CY or CZ (with all important ones beginning with CY), so all important Canadian IATA codes begin with Y. So, for example, Vancouver International has ICAO code CYVR and IATA code YVR.
And if you want to know why there are two codes, they are used for two different purposes. The IATA code is used for ticketing and related purposes (e.g. baggage tags) and the ICAO code is used for navigation (e.g. what the Air Traffic Controllers use).
Only in the Original 48. It’s PA in Alaska, PH in Hawaii (P for Pacific) - the code system was set up while they were territories.
Many smaller airports in the US do not have ICAO codes at all, including all those with digits in their 3-figure codes. When setting a GPS destination or waypoint to one, you have to remember *not * to dial in the K.
/nitpick
Yeah, Canada got stiffed in the Understandable Airport Code department.
The cartoon gets funnier if you look up the codes:
YVR is Vancouver International.
YYC is Calgary.
YYZ is Toronto Pearson.
YWG is Winnipeg.
YFB is Iqaluit, Nunavut.
YFZ is a ranch in Texas.
YXY is Whitehorse, Yukon.
YUL is Montréal.
YYT is St Johns, Newfoundland.
In New Orleans, we have MSY which once had a perfectly logical meaning but it’s been lost to the new “Louis Armstrong International Airport” moniker.
Our airport is still known to most locals as Moisant Airport, named after John Moisant, a daredevil who crashed his plane in the early 1900s in the stockyards that are now occupied by the airport.
A couple days later, forced into choosing the multi-change cheapest one by the boss, Greg made his reservation. By the time the Fuel Surcharge, the 9/11 Surcharge, the Airport Use Surcharge, and the Because We Can Surcharge had been added, it game to over $1,400. Iliad is exagerating for comic effect. My internet has been down at home so I haven’t seen anything since then. I wonder what Iceplug, NF will look like.
Montreal to Charlottetown is usually about 5-600$ round trip (usually weekend flights, and during university holidays), more if, for some reason known own to the Gods of Air Canada, they decide to send you via Toronto
(I’ll wait while you take out a map and reassure yourself that you haven’t forgotten your basic geography)
The cheapest we ever could find was about 350$ round trip, on a non-peak random weekend (I forget what time of year). WestJet isn’t usually any better; they tend to match their prices to Air Canada pretty closely for those routes. Last January, round trip to Orlando for two cost us 650$… per person. Montreal to Toronto, though, I’ve managed to do for 210$, round trip, on Easter weekend. It was cheaper than Via Rail!
Completely insane.
OK, I’m the first to knock Air Canada, but if they send one through YYZ to get from YUL to YYG or YYT, the only increase in fare is the 8.00 plus GST for the “privilege” of connecting in Toronto. Airfares are set on a point to point basis, not by segment (unless of course you have more than a 4 hour break domestically / transborder or 24 hours international). A routing I often see at work from Halifax (YHZ) to Edmonton (YEG), is YHZ YYZ YVR YEG. Sucks to do it, but you don’t pay more.
One of the games I play in downtime is “how many segments can I pack into a trip”? I’ve managed to get from YOW (Ottawa) to LHR (London Heathrow) for the same price as YOW LHR YOW, as YOU YUL YYZ YHZ YYT LHR.
On airfares being insane, I’ll give ya that. I’ve seen YOW YVR for 900.00 versus YOW LHR for 700.00. I’ve also taken advantage of mistakes (and been boned by airlines). I had a ticket a few years ago from YYZ to LCA (Larnaca, Cyprus) with a stop in Milan for 210.00 in Business class, but Alitalia canceled that. Last year I had YOW to TXL (Berlin Templehof) for 400.00 which got pooched by weather.
You just need to find someone who can play the airfare game. Maybe I should start an “Ask the Travel Agent” thread.
Well, to be fair, an 8$ increase in fare is still “more”.
I’m not a travel agent, but I sometimes feel like one, booking last-minute flights for my mom or my sister between Montreal and PEI. I try and find the best fares and shortest travel times, but when mom calls me up on Thursday to tell me she wants to leave Saturday and be back on Tuesday, there’s only so much I can do. I just think it’s hilarious to go to Toronto in order to get to PEI (I personally hate taking detours of any kind, even when just walking through a building - shortest route for me, please!).
WestJet isn’t all that great; mom wants to travel next month, and on the date she wants to come back, WJ has a flight to Charlottetown, but not from it. Their website is annoying.
An “ask the Travel Agent” thread could be interesting, though. If you haven’t already (I don’t really have time to even be on the boards right now to check!), you definitely should start one!
