Talk:ICAO airport code

History Sourcing

The History paragraph doesn't cite any sources. Does anyone have a source for this information? I'd also like to find out how other areas (Africa, Asia, Australia) were assigned, which might be in the same source. All the 'sources' I can find seem to just reference this list and say "Oh and Australia is Y and China is Z," and the only other source i have is an anecdote from an old air traffic controller (worked ATC in the 90's) saying Australia got Y and China got Z because they put their submissions in late. I'm going to mark the whole paragraph with Citation Needed

Stelith (talk) 12:52, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Missing countries / localities

The code list does not show what codes are used for:

* Andorra
   :comment: has no aerodromes Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
* Antarctica
* Bouvet Island
* Faroe Islands
   :comment: uses EK like Danmark for its single aerodrome Vagar EKVG Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
* French Southern Territories
* Heard Island, McDonald Islands
* Liechtenstein
   :comment: has no aerodromes Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
* Pitcairn Island (no airport, but surely a weather station)
* St. Helena
* San Marino
   comment: has a single aerodrome but not ICAO-coded Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
* South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (British Antarctic Terr?)
* Svalbard, Jan Mayen I
   :comment: both use EN like Norway Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
* Tokelau Is

The scheme does not indicate if a prefix code has been designated for extraterrestrial sites such as stations in Earth orbit or on the Moon, although such stations can be expected to be within the reach of civil aviation within the lifetime of this scheme.

maps

the maps cover the grid. this should be fixed. i'd do it myself, but since most of you are wikinazis and i don't want to offend the almighty wikigods, i'll let one of the trekkies do it instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.115.125.141 (talk) 18:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Is that list "official"?

There are a few entries in the list that I'm not really fond of, but since I don't know whether the names used in the list are "official", I don't want to edit it. 1. K for "mainland USA", but a separate letter for Alaska. To me, Alaska is on the mainland. "Contiguous 48 states" seems more appropriate to me, if the intention is to exclude Alaska, Hawaii, and the overseas territories. 2. "F - southern Africa " includes central Africa too. Shouldn't that be indicated? 3. WP, Timor Leste. East Timor seems more appropriate on the English wikipedia, to me. So, if the things mentioned above are "as stated by ICAO", just ignore this. But if they're not (and you can get a source on that), go ahead and edit accordingly! 85.224.199.36 09:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

ICAO code rules

Am I correct in assuming that the letters of airport and navaids (VORs, etc.) must be upper case? Are numbers allowed? Can anyone name the ICAO document containing the guidelines that cover the naming rules?

• To the anon, convention always places them in uppercase. I have seen no instance where they are different. Burgundavia (✈ take a flight?) 23:26, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

All letters that identify a navaid in air navigation will be upper case, as can be observed in any airport chart. Numbers are not allowed in airport codes, VORs, NDBs or localizer codes, however, they can be used in GPS coords/waypoints, mostly relating to approaches or landings (i.e. IF01L would be the initial approach fix for runway 01L, with disregard to how many identically named waypoints exist. These are marked with four-dented stars and are associated with a particular airport. As a partial explanation, I think that the "I" prefix is not used due to many ILS localizers having their own codes, mostly starting with "I" (i.e. INAT in Panama City 03R, IJFK in Kennedy's 4R, etc.) - 12:25 GMT, August 4th, 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.226.56.3 (talk) 12:26, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Camp Canargus, Haiti

Does anyone have any info on this place? It's the only C listing ICAO code outside Canada. All Google has is the weather for it. Thanks CambridgeBayWeather 08:13, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

ICAO codes are not comprehensive

There are thousands of airports that don't have ICAO codes.

Article introduction adjusted accordingly. Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

How the .... did they come up with these?

How on earth did Australia end up with Y, given the countries that have codes starting with A? This is indeed the most bizarre list of codes I've ever seen! (not being sceptical - but they don't make much sense to a n00B!)

Garrie 03:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Major Countries Be Listed On Top?

It would be easier to find information if the major countries be listed in a seperate table. This way you won't have to scroll through all the ones hardly anyone would care to read.

How do you know that people don't want to read the others or choose which countries are major? Doing so would violate Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

• My apologies for putting U.S. and canada on top. I am new to editing wikipedia and was not aware of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy. Since people from other countries view the English Wikipedia, I will undo my edit and I take back my comment on major countries. I promise to only give helpful ideas next time that don't voilate any policies.
• Thank you CambridgeBayWeather for reverting my mistake for me.

Australian Islands

Cocos Island, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island Share the 'Y' ICAO prefix with Australia. Qaanaaq 06:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Map requested

The article provides good information about the mapping of the first or first two letters of the ICAO code to the location. This is best shown as a map, for example: South Africa as "FA", Moscow-area of Russia as "UU", Southern India as "VO" etc. In some cases such as the continental USA and Canada, the second letter does not usually map to the location, so they could go by the first letter alone as "K" or "C". I have added a note on WP:RP. -- Brhaspati\^talk/_contribs 00:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you added the present maps after your above request. If the request has been satisfied please remove the request from the top of this Talk page and from WP:RP. (SEWilco 21:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC))

Western Sahara

Listed on this page as GS**, but according to List_of_airports_by_ICAO_code:_G they've all been renamed to Morocco codes? Ojw (talk) 17:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

ICAO codes one-to-one?

I understand that ICAO codes are unique to a given airport for a given moment in time. Can an airport be assigned more than one ICAO code simultaneously? For example, Al Asad Airbase currently shows two ICAO codes. Are these both currently valid, or is one of them an old code, and the other a new code that replaced it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.82.243.104 (talk) 21:21, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for the example given, but there are similar cases: the grounds of Brussels National airport include both EBBR Zaventem for the civil operations and EBMB Melsbroek for military ops; these have a separate terminal. Jan olieslagers (talk) 02:42, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

The example of EBBR/EBMB is a good one. Off topic, sometimes ICAO codes are updated/replaced. For example, when Johannesburg airport was renamed from Jan Smuts to Oliver Tambo, its code went from FAJS to FAOR. cagliost (talk) 08:40, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Frankfurt Airport always had ICAO code EDDF, Rhein-Main Air Base was exactly the same airport, but had EDAF until its closure. For many decades the airport had two valid ICAO codes. --Uli Elch (talk) 08:56, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Another example is Sion, in Switzerland, it has codes LSGS and LSMS; I think the first goes for the civilian part, the second for the military. Jan olieslagers (talk) 12:11, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Alphanumeric?

Are ICAO airport codes really alphanumeric? I've been looking (though I don't have a comprehensive list of the codes), and I haven't seen any airports that have numeric characters in their code. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.82.243.105 (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2011 (UTC) }}

Yes they are. If you have seen charts in the United States, they use for really small airports 3 or 4-symbol alphanumeric codes. In that particular case, the FAA tries to ensure that their commercial airports' codes under the IATA, ICAO and FAA protocols match. For example, Los Angeles Int'l has the IATA and FAA codes LAX, and ICAO KLAX. Therefore, most small airports tend to be registered under a combination of numbers and letters to keep this standard. IATA registering is not mandatory and it is only expected in airports that handle commercial traffic.

Those codes with numbers in them are not ICAO-codes properly speaking, they are pseudo-ICAO codes of the FAA's own invention. Nothing wrong there, France has a similar scheme. Both countries have too many airfields for the available number of codes. Proper ICAO aerdrome codes have four upper-case letters, and that's it. Only I don't have an official reference for that - ICAO publications are countless, but normally not available on the www. Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

"Those codes with numbers in them are not ICAO-codes properly speaking, they are pseudo-ICAO codes of the FAA's own invention." @Jan olieslagers:, can you give some examples? cagliost (talk) 08:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Alphanumeric codes are also assigned by Canada, for the same reason described above. I have never seen any reference to those being official ICAO codes - they don't appear in ICAO Doc 7910 "Location Indicators", in fact that document specifically states "This document contains a list of ICAO four-letter location indicators" (i.e. not alphanumeric). I can't understand why this hasn't been nailed on the head yet. DaveReidUK (talk) 10:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

@DaveReidUK: I suppose the ICAO document has not been cited as a reference because it is not freely available on the www - or something should have changed at my unawares.Jan olieslagers (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

@Cagliost: no, I'm afraid I haven't any example at hand. Nor am I very much interested in what they do "over in them US" ;) Jan olieslagers (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

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" airline operations such as flight planning"

Really? I've been involved in flight planning software for 12 years now including UK, EU, US, Mid East airlines....I've never even encountered these codes. It's always been IATA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.147.119 (talk) 14:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Flight planning is not done by airlines only... Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Tablify/move List of airports by ICAO code: *

I'd like to convert the articles like List of airports by ICAO code: U to a table format like User:AlanM1/Test/List of airports by ICAO code/U. Any objections, style comments, etc.? It also seems appropriate to move them to sub-pages of this one, like International Civil Aviation Organization airport code/U doesn't it? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 06:02, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Is "call sign" not an appropriate term?

I see "airport code" and "location indicator" are given as synonymous terms, but what about "call sign"? Is that not appropriate in aviation? The ICAO article seems to feel the same way. AngusCA (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Negative. Aircraft and ground stations (or services) have callsigns. Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Antarctica

In practice, Antarctica doesn't have a single ICAO code, as each airport uses codes assigned for their respective country:

• EG: United Kingdom
• NZ: New Zealand (also used by U.S. antarctic bases)
• SA: Argentina
• SC: Chile
• Y: Australia

Certain online airport databases have codes starting with AA or AT that appear to be ad hoc inventions.

Locoluis (talk) 01:50, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@Locoluis:, can you give some examples? cagliost (talk) 08:42, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

About Structure and Kosovo identifiers

The BK was used in Kosovo much earlier then 2008. Pristina's airport identifier became BKPR on 15 April 2004 if I remember properly. Previously it was LYPR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.88.253.78 (talk) 02:28, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

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It is a geocode

@Jan olieslagers: Please see geocode#Systems of standard names definition. Like a country code that is a name associated to a (big) polygon in the map, airport and aerodromes are also associated to (very small) polygons in the map. --Krauss (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for polite discussion! Still, I cannot agree. For one example (the first that came to my mind, but there must be many more), to what geographic entity (polygon or location) does EHMC correspond? Rgds, Jan olieslagers (talk) 15:29, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

How deafening, the silence that followed. Jan olieslagers (talk) 13:11, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Is this reliable? www.avcodes.co.uk/aptcodesearch.asp

Right now the external link section for this article link to http://www.avcodes.co.uk/aptcodesearch.asp "Airport IATA/ICAO Designator / Code Database Search (from Aviation Codes Central Web Site – Regular Updates)". Is this a reliable resource? I can't find out who runs it. Seems a bit spammy... On the other hand, it seems moderately useful and I can't find anything more official to replace it with? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

It is certainly _not_ up to date: as a quick check I looked up two fields that I know, EBZR and EBZH; both are still given with an IATA code, though these been withdrawn several years ago. Jan olieslagers (talk) 07:58, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

As "anything more official": IATA codes can be checked on their own website; ICAO codes are supposed to be in the various national AIPs, alas they aren't always. Also, I seem to understand that some countries, Ukraine for one, assign "pseudo-icao" codes. Jan olieslagers (talk) 07:58, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

FlightAware Z codes

The article mentions FlightAware. OK, here's how they say San Francisco to Tokyo areas,

• https://flightaware.com/analysis/route.rvt?origin=ZOA&destination=ZTY

Mention what codes they are. Homebrew perhaps? Jidanni (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Those appear to be pseudo-IATA (3-letter) codes and have no relevance to an article on ICAO codes. DaveReidUK (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

There was a time when IATA codes were assigned to railway stations, especially those with High Speed Train services, so that these service could be booked through the usual airline ticketing mechanisms. And these codes often began with a Z. I seem to remember that such a code was assigned to Brussels South ("midi", to some :) ) railway station at one time, though it seems to be unassigned since. As are ZOA and ZTY; apparently this matter is now handled in a different way. Jan olieslagers (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

2010 ICAO list

There is an ICAO list from 2010 ECCAIRS 4.2.8 Data Definition Standard: Location Indicators by State on Archive.org. Of course it is out of date, but still a useful resource for smaller aerodromes not found in national AIPs. cagliost (talk) 08:55, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Bear in mind also that the ECCAIRS list is intended to be used in connection with historical accident/incident data, and can therefore be expected to include references to airfields that may no longer exist. DaveReidUK (talk) 10:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately national AIPs are not exhaustive, ignoring many smaller aerodromes which do have ICAO codes, such as EGMA. Presumably, an up-to-date source published by ICAO themselves would be the most authoritative source, if such a source exists. cagliost (talk) 12:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Obviously an official ICAO source exists - https://store.icao.int/en/location-indicators-doc-7910 DaveReidUK (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

December 2015 list is here. cagliost (talk) 14:32, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

spaceport's ICAO code

so for some reason i can't seem to find info about Palmachim Airbase unusual code: LL59 in all documentation by the Israel Airports Authority and its governing body Ministry of Transport and Road Safety LL59 is not a pseudo code i couldn't find any example of another spaceport with numbers in their code (not counting the pseudo codes), if anyone can find another one or more documentations please share them. thanks in advance. 2A02:6680:1107:85AD:D8B5:70FF:FE56:6EB4 (talk) 14:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

LL59 is certainly not a valid ICAO code. It could perhaps be from the aerodrome list or database of some supplier of navigation data, perhaps Garmin or a similar company. Jan olieslagers (talk) 20:00, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

J is for Mars?

There seems to be some disagreement about this in the edit history. Should J be listed as the prefix for Mars? It is true that the only place with an ICAO code starting with J, Jezero, is on Mars, but I'm not aware of any indication that they have specifically reserved J for Mars. Saucy^{[talk – contribs]} 06:53, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Here is a YouTube video claiming that J is for Mars, though it didn't clarify the reservation of the entire range of J-letter codes (but it may hint or imply so). IBugOne (talk) 11:00, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Revert war

We recently see a revert war, where user @Invisious absolutely wants to replace the perfectly correct example of Heathrow Airport with Dammam Airport; and without ever explaining why. I am totally with @DaveReidUK, and would even suggest blocking the account of the offending user. However, still better would be to know the reason for the desired modification, there might be a good one, but we simply do not know. One thing is clear: revert wars are not acceptable. Jan olieslagers (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. You make a good point - if every fanboy for a particular airport/airline/aircrsft decides to make totally unnecessary edits just to feature their favourite, then Wikipedia would be chaos. While I have no wish to block @Invisious or anyone else, if it's the only way to stop this nonsense then so be it. DaveReidUK (talk) 08:31, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree --Uli Elch (talk) 08:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

come visit kfia you'll like it Invisious (talk) 16:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

No thanks. I am perfectly okay here in Portugal, with the nice airfield of LPCO Coimbra nearby, and a glass of red wine even nearer :) Cheers! Jan olieslagers (talk) 20:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

haram dude Invisious (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

No I am not dude and I am not haram either. Jan olieslagers (talk) 20:30, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

NOT VANDALISM

BRING MY EDIT BACK IM NOT VANDALISING Invisious (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes you are. No need to SHOUT, either. More than ever I am in favour of blocking your account. Even on a forum, your postings would be questionable, and would require substantiating. But this is not a forum, we are creating and maintaining an encyclopedia. Do you know what an encyclopedia is? Jan olieslagers (talk) 16:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Good to see our friend has managed to find the Talk page. Interesting response to the suggestion that they might seek a consensus for their proposed changes. DaveReidUK (talk) 19:44, 11 September 2024 (UTC)