I got into airport identifiers the way most people do — by staring at a boarding pass and wondering why the three letters didn’t match the city name. My flight to Chicago said ORD and I spent a solid five minutes thinking they’d booked me to the wrong place. They hadn’t. The airport code system just has a mind of its own.
The Two Systems You Should Know
Probably should have led with this. ICAO gives airports four-letter codes that pilots and air traffic controllers use. IATA gives them three-letter codes that show up on your ticket. For US airports, ICAO just slaps a K in front of the IATA code — so LAX becomes KLAX, JFK becomes KJFK. International prefixes vary by region. Learning your local codes is a solid starting point, and reliable reference sources like AirNav or SkyVector make it easy to look anything up when you’re unsure.
That’s what makes the identifier system endearing, really. It looks random at first glance, but there’s actual logic underneath once you know where to look.
