Canadian airport codes....
thanks!
The question about letters being a clue to location is interesting, though the Y part is now solved. The US has IAH, ORD, JFK, CMH, and other puzzles that you can begin to figure out but don't seem geographic. In Canada, why is Toronto Pearson YYZ and sometimes YTO? I suppose YVR and YOW make obvious sense if you ignore the "Y". But the lost luggage in Canada can still make its way to Chile.
YYZ refers specifically to Toronto Pearson Airport.
YTO is the generic city code, which includes YYZ, YTZ(The Island Airport) and YBZ(Union Station)
Large cities with multiple airports have this NYC(covers EWR, JFK and LGA) for example. It allows CRS to show more routings than otherwise.
For example NYC-LON(London, UK)will show more flight alternatives than LHR-JFK.
Canada was assigned CB-, CF-, CH-, CI-, CJ-, CK-, CY-, CZ-, among others.
CB- was reserved for the CBC's (Cdn Broadcasting Corp) radio & TV frequencies.
As I understand it the CBC was using CB call signs before the ITU standards came into effect and that under them CB officially belongs to someone else (China?). However Canada has continued to assign CB call signs to CBC stations even though this is not a compliant practise.
Canadian codes actually start with a CY as in CYYZ for Toronto CYUL for Montreal etc. As this is the ICAO way of doing things. The alternative is CU.., CW.., CZ.. The USA also does the same thing except that they were given every combination starting with K in the front. K... So we get KJFK, KLAX etc. There are also a bunch of series in the Pacific for the USA starting with PA as in PANC for Anchorage and PH as in PHNL for Honolulu.
IATA only use three letters so drop the first letter from the ICAO and there you have it for Canada and the US.
In Europe and the rest of the world it is not so easy to match the two. Heathrow is LHR for the IATA group, but EGLL for the ICAO types.
Canada does not share the ICAO C letter with any other country, so why we were limited is unknown. We then could have had the ability to go with CTOR for Toronto. With the original restriction that the first letter must be a C and the second letter a Y there was not room for a lot of creativity when choozing airport codes.
For a complete list see:
http://www.house747.freeserve.co.uk/icaoaptc.htm
Airports use radio frequencies for communication. Radio frequencies are assigned call letters. The International Telecommunications Union assigned different call letters to each country. Much like each country has its own aircraft registration numbers.
Canada was assigned CB-, CF-, CH-, CI-, CJ-, CK-, CY-, CZ-, among others.
CB- was reserved for the CBC's (Cdn Broadcasting Corp) radio & TV frequencies.
CF-, CH-, CI-, CJ-, CK- were reserved for other broadcasters. (radio, T.V. etc)
CY-, CZ- were reserved for transportation frequencies.
if this has been discussed before i apologise, but i'm really curious to know why most common (or is it all?) canadian airport codes start with Y, and why the 3 letters seldom bear any relationship to the city name....?
thanks!
As I recall the IATA designators are four letters beginnng with CY**. IE: Vancouver CYVR, Old Crow: CYOC etc.
1D
why most common (or is it all?) canadian airport codes start with Y
There are other airport codes in Canada that do not begin with Y. Although they are not common, some of the ones that AC or some of the smaller carriers (Calm Air, Bearskin) fly to:
XBE Bearskin Lake, ON
XLB Lac Brochet, MB
XPK Pukatawagan, MB
XSI South Indian Lake, MB
XTL Tadoule Lake, MB
ZBF Bathurst, NB
ZFN Fort Norman, NT
ZGI Gods River, MB
ZLT La Tabatiere, QC
ZSJ Sandy Lake, ON
There are others, of course, and I found a great link at this link (http://www.siber.org/sib/travel/iata-airport-codes.txt).
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