Use of three-letter aiport codes on helpline

yes, it has been a bugbear of mine for many years .Most folk have little or no idea of the various airport codes, some I can guess at but most leave me completely flummoxed.

Philip, you are so right! I never know what the heck they are talking about when posts say AMX, or VBP. I only know my own (YUL) and not because I need or want to, only because after all these years it's embedded in my memory. Perhaps it is a subtle way of showing how well-travelled and sophisticated one is but I find it pretentious.

It's not just airports. Posters seam to use invented abbreviations for places which you are supposed to guess. When I first read this site it took me some time to work out where "CT" was. That is not even the abbreviation I would use, "5T" is better, but maybe posters don't know what "cinque" means.
I recently came across "BO", with no explanation. Turned out to be "Berner Oberland".
Is this some US practice?

I would not use CH, DE, ES, HR, NL etc. on this site, because I know they would not universally be understood, even though they are the official international abbreviations, and not just made up.

Well last weekend we took a rt from MKE to SEA on SW. Flights on DL from GRB or ATW were just way too expensive, and there was no price advantage of driving all the way to ORD or MDW. We were trying to use our DL FF miles, but could not score tickets. YVR was too far out of the way and the border crossing can be a nightmare on holiday weekends.

It is a problem with abbrevations is agreeing on them in context. I do use the codes Chris says as country abbreviations, and probably have done on here.

Not having seen CT used for Cinque Terre, in an Italian context I would have assumed it meant Catania in Sicily as that is the province's official Italian abbreviation, and therefore at the opposite end of the country.

I find using the abbrevations for the airports a bit easier then when the former names for an airport are used, that can be confusing, especially where the former name has been obsolete for decades.

I usually don't know what places people are talking about when they use the airport codes in their posts. I've never seen anyone talking like that other than here and one Canadian hockey team I used to follow that would always talk about what other teams they were playing by using the airport codes. It took me the longest time to figure out what they were talking about when they said the next game was at XYZ or what have you, and then I just thought that was a stupid way to say it.

I use airport codes when a city has multiple airports, sometimes even if they don't. It's just a habit. Sorry if it's been annoying.

Does anyone else find posts written as if they wr txts annoying, too?

CT to me is Costa Teguise.

FWP=http://tinyurl.com/culox7o

I still wonder why so many people cannot be bothered with the correct spelling of cities and destinations. In the era of search engines there is a definite difference between Linate and Lunato (that, BTW, most Italians would interpret as Lonato that is a completely different place).

I always try to spell my place names properly, but sometimes spell check can be especially inventive on an iPad - I've had some interesting 'corrections'!

I do tend to use the abbrev for airports if they are the more popular ones...LHR, VCE, LGW, JFK, LAX...I guess in this texting and twittering world, people abbrev everything (including abbreviation...lol).

And if I'm typing a reply to someone about Cinque Terre (CT) - or some other place with a long name - like talking about the Amalfi Coast (AC) or maybe Villefranche sur Mer (VSM)...I tend to type the name the first time then abbrev after that...

And speaking of abbrev'ing in general - it took me a long time to figure out what NSFW and DH meant...I'm still not sure I'm clear on DH...so it's not just airport codes and place names that people may not understand...

Asp2, I thoroughly agree. When I see a name I don't recognise, but I look it up and find some obscure locality, I am never quite sure if they mean that, or a similarly named but more famous place. Some names I just cannot guess.
You can go back and edit your own posts, so why does the poster not fix the spelling?

Also, people who do not say where some where is, but merely "Stow, England", or "Stratford, England". Both places are obviously in an English-speaking country, but there are lots of Stow's and Stratford's. If you mean Stow-on-the-Wold or Stratford-upon-Avon, say so.
Same goes for Frankfurt, Germany (Frankfurt-am-Main or Frankfurt-an-der-Oder?); Rothenburg, Germany (Rothenburg ob der Tauber, or one of the other ones?)

And finally, there was a post asking about transport from Newark to Edinburgh. I started writing a reply about getting a train from Newark Northgate station and changing at Doncaster or York for Edinburgh. Only then did I re-read the post and noticed it sounded like they were asking for flights, and there is no airport in Newark.

When I see a poster has used a three letter airport code I ignore it and go to the next post. Arrogance is no excuse for poor communication.

Let's get real! Who do you know that spells out Charles de Gaulle Airport rather than using CDG. If someone asks a question in the Italy forum about how to get to MXP, we all know what they mean. If it's a more obscure or less well know airport then, yes, they should spell out what they mean. And regarding other abbreviations commonly used on the forum, I think most everyone on this forum knows and uses CT as a common abbreviation of Cinque Terre, and RodT for Rothenburg ob der Tauber, as well as ET for Eiffel Tower, etc. I wouldn't commonly use these in my normal 'life' but here on this particular forum I certainly would, and do. It saves a lot of keying.

Chris F--maybe that person wanted to fly from Newark, New Jersey, USA (airport code EWR) to Edinburgh? That is a case where it would have been good practice. Using airport codes is more precise, not lazy at all. In cities that have multiple airports, it is important to know which one you are talking about. Most search engines only show the three-letter code. so one must pay attention or will risk ending up at Gatwick (LGW) or London City Airport (LCY) instead of Heathrow (LHR).

Nancy, where is MXP?
Sasha, as other posters have said, not everybody knows their airport codes, and I would not have guessed that ET = Eiffel Tower.
What may be an obvious abbreviation to the poster can be totally baffling to the reader. If you want a reply, please do the courtesy of making your question clear, complete and unambiguous.

MXP is Milan Malpensa Airport and it's used on here all the time. When it comes to common abbreviations context is everything.

I think a lot depends on context. My natural reaction to writing on a forum the main airport for Paris would be Paris-CDG, like NY-JFK. I would guess most people would understand LHR, but it feels more uncomfortable to type or read than (London) Heathrow.

The issue with CT for Cinque Terre is definitely context. In official Italian usage CT is the province code for Catania, used in addresses, on vehicle registration plates, on road signs, home of Mount Etna amongst other things. If the context was not clear, I don't post that much on the Italy threads, I would automatically think the person meant Catania, same as in an Italian context NA is Naples, FI Florence, TO Turin.

So in that instance I would be answering the question as I read it not as it was asked, hence the context.

Amen Nancy!

This might help somebody: https://www.world-airport-codes.com/. In addition to the search box, you can scroll down and find lists by airport code, airport name, city name, country name, etc. Be aware, some information may be dated.

Many airports listed really are only places to land a fixed wing aircraft or helicopter and do not actually have codes. In Tucson, there are 16 such places. Only 3 have IATA (International Air Transport Association) codes. Incidentally, the IATA is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.

Chris and Philip make some good points, but I have to agree with others that context is everything. Better a correct TLA (three letter acronym) than a misspelled city name (Vernazza/Vernaza/Verazza and its various permutations over the years for example).

I think airport codes make sense. Made up abbreviations for cities and regions (a sin of which I am guilty) should be avoided. It's hard enough that travelers need to learn Venezia for Venice and Firenze for Florence the first time they try to travel there. Maybe at least we could follow a standard journalistic practice and write the name out full the first time with the abbreviation in parentheses, i.e., Cinque Terre (5T) or Berner-Oberand (BO) for use as the answer progresses. It's always good to save keystrokes - as long as there is clarity - especially on a smartphone.

And yes, Chris, it is an American "thing." We are notorious in our use of acronyms and texting has not helped. But other countries do some hard-to-deciper abbreviations too: Usa for U.S.A. in Italy, for example.

Sam, love your humorous response!

Ha! Sam, as a former resident of Chicago, Madison and an alum of Lawrence University I understood all your abbreviations! :)

I don't have a problem with airport abbreviations as many cities now have multiple airports and it can help with clarity. I never fly home to Rockford via Midway airport, but always use O'Hare, or ORD. But, I agree with MC that it really does help to say Chicago-ORD or NYC JFK (we're are allowed to always abbreviate NYC. I believe it is in the UN charter. :) ). I share the same frustration about spelling. Sterling is about the money, Stirling is a city! :)

Oh and isn't DH, Designated Hitter? LOL

Pam

I still have no idea - I just used to see DH used a lot in responses and in the context of the posts, I took it to mean 'dear husband' as they seemed to be talking about a family member- was I right? Still don't know!

'OP' always used to get me as well (I'm assuming it means 'original poster'). ;)

Unless I am mistaken, DH stands for Drunken Haggis.

Embarrassingly it took me too long to realise NSFW was not a typo referring to the largest Australian state, but something altogether different.

To Laurel's comment, Usa looks better, though wrong, to these British eyes than U.S.A. as the normal abbreviation is now USA without the dots.

OK [I mean okay], I give up - what's NSFW?

Oh my, the Urban Dictionary says that DH is Dear Husband. I wonder if you really ought to be North Korean to use it with authority. It can also mean Diamond Head in Hawaii.

And NSFW is Not Safe for Work. It's even in Merriam Webster now!

I agree with what Nancy and the others who have said what she initially said. On the net it's CDG for me.

The three letter code can be important. A number of years ago I goofed when the travel website (not airline website) used the city name (i.e. Oslo) for the airport. I learned the hard way that Oslo TRF and Oslo OSL are on opposite sides of Oslo and TRF (Sandefjord Torp) does not have easy train service to downtown Oslo.

At least folks on this forum seem to stick to the International Air Transport Association three letter airport codes and not the International Civil Aviation Organization four letter airport codes.

Philip,

I'm one that has also been "guilty" of using airport (and other) abbreviations in posts and one of the reasons, as Zoe mentioned, is that it's a good way to avoid confusion in cities that have multiple airports. I usually tend to spell the city and then add a " / " and then the three letter airport code. In many cases, the person asking the question has also used the abbreviations, so I have to assume they know what I'm referring to.

Most of the group here are a fairly well-travelled lot, and since this problem hasn't been mentioned before, I assumed everyone was comfortable with use of the three letter codes. I suspect that more than a few here already know many of the codes for airports typically used in Europe and the usual North American departure points, so it didn't occur to me that this might be a problem for others.

I have also used the "C.T." abbreviation at times, but it's usually preceded somewhere in the reply by the complete spelling of the name, and in the context of the entire post it's quite clear what I'm referring to.

I agree that written communication these days seems to have suffered as a result of modern technology, and is now overloaded with abbreviations (probably as a result of text messages and people posting from Smartphones, which also leads to unexpected typos due to "auto-correct").

Your point is certainly valid, and I'll try to be more diligent and precise in future.

I agree with Nancy and Laurel on this one: context is key!

I always use the precise airport code when referring to an airport, but I never use the airport code when referring to the city itself. For the sake of clarity, thank goodness that this seems to be the norm here.

As for those saying that the use of the airport codes is "arrogant" or "pretentious", well... the comment reflects more on that person, IMO.

If there is a situation where an acronym/abbreviation is appropriate is exactly when one uses an airport code in the context of a post about flights/airplanes. Most others are indeed excesses.

And how about those who use the initials of the name here as nickname??

WTF!

I agree about the DH. It took me quite a while to figure out what it meant. After I learned it was 'dear husband' every time I see it in a post I ignore that post. To me DH (or dear husband) is just one step above 'the wife' or 'the hubby' or the 'hubs' - all of which irritate me no end. Can't you just say "my husband" or "my wife" without the cutsey stuff?

Okay rant over.

By the way, does NSFW on a forum like this really mean 'not safe for work' - what does that mean?

Although it is inconvenient to be presented with an airport code you don't know, this is not an "Internet Abbreviation" issue, like OMG or AFAIR. It's vital to describe the airport accurately, and sometimes it saves me looking up the spelling (or getting an accented character for pasting, which may not even render correctly in the newsboard ... ).

Just to pick one example, UK travelers (United Kingdom .... ) who don't have a lot of travel experience often book a cheap, cheap flight to Belgium that lands at Charleroi, not actually in Brussels. And some of them refer to it (this is more a problem on Trip Advisor than it is here) as "Brussles (sic.) airport". So I often use the term BRU.

okay, ladies and gentlemen, what does NSFW really mean? "Not safe for work" makes no sense.

Tim, seeing "BRU" makes me think of IRN-BRU, the neon-orange soft drink in Scotland.

"CT" is the official U.S. Postal Service abbreviation for the state Connecticut, otherwise abbreviated as Conn.

"ORD" always makes me think of Ordway, a small town in southeastern Colorado that does not have a major international airport.

Regarding the country codes mentioned earlier, I don't know whether this is a Colorado Thing or not, but in the last few years, many vehicles around the Denver area have been sporting the white oval stickers with black letters (DE, CH, NL, etc.) that European cars have (or had) to identify their country of registration. As a cultural and nationality melting pot, the USA (Usa for MC) has lots of citizens who can trace their ancestry back to European roots, and presumably this is a "Proud to be Swiss" (or whatever) statement by the occupants of the car or truck. Some have multiple stickers for various locations, which I've assumed to mean that a person has a mixed heritage (as do I - a real mutt), or that the husband has Dutch blood and the wife is Norweigian, or whatever. Scottish, Italian, Mexican, etc. flag decals also abound.

Keeping with the oval bumper sticker theme, others say "26.2," which I presume represents a marathoner who runs that many miles during an event, and then there's Pb - the Periodic Table abbreviation for lead - for Leadville, Colorado, at 10,000 feet (over 3,000 meters) the highest city in the USA (Usa).

BTW, eliminating the periods from "USA" has undoubtedly saved the US Olympic teams tens of thousands of dollars in costs for labeling uniforms!

When I was younger I had a full head of hair.

I've been around here for a few years. I now have considerably less hair with occasional patches.

I'm not losing my hair. I keep pulling it out in bunches.

Why oh why do our dear readers think, on this now very international and worldwide helpline, that everybody will understand their particular alphabet soup? Especially three letter codes for airports that very few or none of use will have flown to or through. And I don't need to stock a website so I can look them up. 9 times out of 10 I don't even open the post, or if I find it in the post I just float on by.

But, boys and girls, what really gets my goat - and causes additional hair going in the bin - is leaving out the qualifying term. What do I mean? There is a lot of duplication of names in Europe, some mentioned above, but just the tip of the iceberg. It can be difficult to give advice on incomplete questions.

It is particularly difficult in the UK. There are loads of towns with the same name and there are roads with similar names.

Somebody may ask about getting to Victoria. Station, Road, Promenade, Street....

Can we please have the qualifying word? Stratford upon Avon, Chipping Campden, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road, Morecambe Bay?

You don't want me to lose what little I have left, now do you?

Yes, NSFW really does mean Not Safe For Work. Which depending on your workplace may not even mean out-and-out porn, just pages involving foul language or people in mildly revealing clothing.

NSFW - not safe for work, or I think of it more as not suitable for work...as in, this video that you are watching when you should be working may have gore or naughty bits or swearing, so watch it at home you lazy lunk! ;)

As for DH - the only time I would call my hubby Dear Husband would be sarcastically (after 25 years, I'm allowed)...I just find it easier to type hubby (I'm too lazy to type in those few extra letters)!

...and WTF - why the face (hahaha - courtesy of Modern Family)

There are a few stories on line where there have been holiday mistakes when something has not been clear as it could. The ones I remember are a few people wanting to go to Sydney, NSW, ending up in Sydney, NS. Which I think links to Nigel's hair problems!

And if they spelled it wrong (Sidney) they could end up in BC (British Columbia, Canada).

Wrong Sydney.

No it doesn't bemuse me at all when people use TLA (!) for airports, but then again I have been on various flyer forums for years. Using them as abbreviations for the places themselves is not so helpful. I generally avoid using the TLA the first time for referring to British railway stations here though.

I liked the joke that Canada turned up late for the meeting that allocated codes so they all begin with a Y. The real reason is far more boring.

If you don't know the airport code you probably don't know the answer to the question. If it bothers you enough to complain about it here you are fortunate to have such First World problems.

I use airport codes all the time when referring to airports because it is just simpler and more precise. For example, it is just so much easier to type "FCO" than to type "Rome Fiumicino Airport". Sorry that some people find it annoying, but I don't see how using an airport code is "pretentious". What it means is that I've memorized the code because I've probably spent hours looking for the cheapest flight and plugging that airport code into kayak and various airline sites day after day.

Amen, Richard. And no one needs to apologize for using them on a travel website. If you really want to complain, try FlyerTalk for obscurity.

The beauty of the three letter airport code is that they literally will never change as long as the facility is in the same place. Given the tendency to rename many things (there are many people who still insist that DCA is Washington National and not Washington Reagan) it's just do much easier that way.

My local airport has had four different official names in the last ten years and it seems like no two airlines call it the same thing. So if I've got a mixed ticket or different airlines handling check-in on each end, it's been really easy to fly out of Okaloosa County and back in to Eglin Air Force Base, and then a short time later, go out of Ft. Walton Beach, FL and return to Valparasio, FL.

And all of those names refer to exactly the same six gate air terminal in the Florida panhandle. In the name of cutting down on confusion the airport marketing director just does the best they can, decides to use the airport code instead of trying to sort it all out, and hire someone to write a catchy jingle to 'Fly VPS' because it's the easiest way of finding common ground amongst naming chaos.

And once it's local lingo, it just kind of becomes habit because you don't want ot have to guess what airlines actually call other airports too.

Marco,

"I liked the joke that Canada turned up late for the meeting that allocated codes so they all begin with a Y. The real reason is far more boring."

Probably not likely that Canada turned up late, as IATA headquarters is located in Montreal, so we would have been hosting the meeting :-)

Well I said it wasn't true .... but they probably would have wanted an away trip anyway.

Now if people wanted to be really obscure they could use the ICAO airport codes instead. Heathrow for example is EGLL.

I really really like the explanations of why the 3-letter airport codes matter. They are not pretentious, or lazy. They are specific and precise, as well as universal ( not language or dialect dependent). if you do notrecognzebthe code ad do not care to look it up, move on and o not answer. Itis not a problem.

If you are asking about airports, the code is the best way to be precise. If asking about trains, or anything else related to the city, name the city, and please spell it right.

IMHO, FWIW and LOL I'm obviously in the minority. I don't mind the abbreviations at all. They are almost always easy to understand in the context of the post, though it took me a while to get used to the ones like SIL (sister-in-law). I use them a lot. As Richard said, if you don't know the code for the airport I need, you can't tell me how much time to allow to get there anyway. On the Italy forum, once the Cinque Terre and/or the Amalfi Coast have been mentioned, then 5T, CT and AC are apparent. Is there really anyone who answers questions on the Italy forum who doesn't know where FCO is?

If there's an acronym I don't know, I usually google it and sometimes learn something in the bargain.

Years ago, I was using this new-fangled internet thing to... well, get dates. If a message was unreadable due to excessive text-speak, abreviations, or lack of punctuation, I simply moved on. Same here. If I don't understand the question, I no point in complaining. Just try to contribute to another thread.

And if they spelled it wrong (Sidney) they could end up in BC (British Columbia, Canada).

Or Sidney, Nebraska (SNY)!

And lest we think that "Vancouver" (YVR) always refers to the home of the Canucks hockey team, there is that other Vancouver (VUO) 250 miles to the south in Washington State, that had the name first!

;-)

The many newbie posters may be baffled by all the acronyms and various airport codes that seem all too normal for us oh so smart folks. However, just yesterday, I was momentarily at a loss when a "TTYL" came my way via a text message.

FCO is a funny one, I would prefer, though am not an arbiter!, Rome-FCO, or Rome Fiumincino. Simply if I looked at a post that had a header FCO Advice my reading of those initials is Foreign and Commonwealth Office and FCO-Advice to a lot of British travellers will ring a lot of panic alarms.

We all do it, using abbreviations that in other countries even in the same language mean something completely different. To a British resident ITV is a television network, to a Spanish one it is a vehicle road worthiness test, which is an NCT in Ireland and MOT in the UK. The Irish comedian Dara O'Briain did a funny bit about the NCT, as he lives in the UK where NCT is the National Childbirth Trust and just used the initials when he and his wife went to the British NCT for ante natal classes.

So context is everything. TTFN..

It occurred to me this morning when reading a magazine, that abbreviations are commonly used and an acceptable writing style used by some very well educated journalists. The format always seems to be that they spell the full term first followed by the abbreviation in brackets, and from that point on they only use the abbreviation. I find myself having to return to the start of the article several times to refresh my memory on what the abbreviation is referring to.

OP is the abbreviation for Order of Preachers (Dominicans), throws me every time I read it here, but I use it, too.

I just recently learned (after a google search) what OP meant! Maybe the forum should have a thread of abbreviations IMO, LOL.

I don't find the abbreviations much of a problem, as it only takes about 20 seconds or so the search for the meanings. What does annoy me is the people that post questions using all abbreviations as if they were using a text message. I find that format hard to read and I won't bother trying to decipher the message, but just move on to another question.

A bit of USA domestic confusion- I was trying to price out airfare to Portland, Maine a few months back. A number of sites tried to autocomplete it so I was searching Portland, Oregon flights instead. We're talking entirely different sides of the country and all there. ( Maine is north-northeast of Boston)

This is a fun and diverting site for airport codes.

Hey, Theresa, that link is fun. Thanks.

It seems that origins of some of the Canadian codes, and the reason they almost all begin with a Y, are shrouded in mystery. Hmmm, the Cannucks attempt at trying to be interesting? (just kiddin', eh)

Canada codes should all start with 'A', eh!

Teresa, neat link! There is a button at the bottom to "add an airport" so maybe I'll add the local airport, LWS, which is not listed. Probably need to wait until next spring when I can catch the surrounding hills when they are green, lol.

As cheeky Brits like to say, everybody prefers their own brand.

Pretentious pedantry (as here instantiated) merits the same execration as jargon-dependent concision.
Under cover of an insistence on intelligibility, the OP and his Quebecoise chorus are actually claiming ownership of a narrative whose composers have expanded beyond their Anglocentric dominion, in the foucaldian sense.

I'm saying that not only to waste time and pile on, but also because I find it laughably pot-calling-kettle and stone-throwing-glass-homeownerish when English people complain about how others use the English language. I think 'The Antiques Roadshow' and most other BBC shows should be captioned, especially for proper nouns. And BBC travel program presenters seem to insist on butchering the pronunciation of every place name they mention, especially those south of Hove. You don't have to go far off the LSE main square to find people with tongues as ham-fisted in their employment of English as any polyglot Singaporean or Nigerian.

[Please join me in ignoring the former CSA (Confederate States of America) when reading the above. Also, I only just now learned that 'jargon' means something else in England than in American English.]

Okay, then .....

Abbreviations are easy:

Just the other day I booked a BC seat using FF miles on AA from JFK to LHR but they put me on a BA flight instead. For the return, I was going to fly the same route but found a different BA flight that goes from LCY to JFK with a stop in SNN for CPB clearance. I'm concerned about comfort on that flight because it's on an A321 instead of a 747 or 777.

Or, I could take FI from JFK to KEF and layover in RKV for a few days before continuing on to LHR or LGW.

A part of me, however, thinks I should go from KEF to CDG, take the RER into PAR and eventually take the ES to STP.

I'm so confused....I think I'll just take DL to MCO and visit the M-O-U-S-E.

Complaining about abbreviations on the Internet? LOL Be happy with three letter abbreviations and that I can't use four letter words to describe how I really feel about some of these posts.

UK Keith -- I am guilty as charged. I really wanted to use 'indexical' and 'problematize' too but it was late and I was getting sleepy.
When the next opportunity arises, I'll take another whack at it.
[Clearly, the 'net still needs to develop clearer ways of marking comments as droll or joking.]

Although not on the internet, this is one of the most entertaining uses of abbreviations that I've seen.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXlvy3sTTBk

(fast forward to about the 40 second mark).

What I great movie. Thanks for the reminder, Ken.

I'd rather read the abbreviations that all the cringingly bad grammar. Me and my xxx want to go to XX for dinner. Will they give my xxx and I a good table? It's just like asking: Will the waiter give I and xxx a good table if xxx and me go to the restaurant early?

Me gotta go now and fix I some lunch.

Wow, I never thought of this as an American thing, but good to know! I use airport codes for flight searches all the time, and prefer it when folks use them to ask questions since it makes clear where they want to go. They actually pop up on search engines even if I am typing in the city, but I suppose those are American search engines. They are also come up on the "ticket" and confirmation emails right next to the airport name. I live in a city with three airports, so knowing the code is very important to us. I also work in a profession with lots (and lots) of acronyms, so it just makes sense to me, I suppose.

Overall, I figure if I don't know the airport code, then I have never been to that airport, and thus, I have no input on the topic and move on!