Why EWR??
 

Ok, but what does EWR mean? Does anybody know??

NEWARK? I don't know if that's actually the logic behind it, but it makes the most sense to me.

because if you say EWR as a word it's "ewwar" which sounds like Newark?

What about YYZ for Toronto?:laugh:

I've never been able to figure out those silly airport codes.:confused: :lol:

Sometimes the airport isn't even in that actual city. Our airport code is PVD which makes sense only the airport is not located in Providence but in a city about 10 miles SW called Warwick.:shrug:

and YUL for montreal! wtf??

And "OAK" for Oakland! WTF?!?! How are we supposed to figure these things out?

All Canadian cities start with a "Y"... not sure what the reason is.

hey! you're right! i live in this country - and i didn't even know that!! :laugh:

Most people aren't. It's either something to do with the old train system, or something to do with the radio towers or something like that.

From my days at Continental, I seem to remember that all Canada airport codes start with Y, but I can't remember why that is. Some codes take the letters from the name of the city: Philadelphia, PHL; Newark, EWR. Some codes have to do with locations of the airport itself, like Orlando is MCO, because the old building was located on McCoy Road.

Carol

Another one, Harrisburg, PA, is MDT because it's actually in the town of Middletown.

Found this on www.airlinequality.com. Of all the answers people gave, this one makes most sense.

The use of a leading Y for "most" Canadian airports is a convention of the IATA (International Air Transport Association), which assigns the three-letter codes. The ICAO (International Civil Aviation organization) assigns four-letter codes, of which the first one or two characters designate a region of the world. In this case, CYxx is for Canada. Mainland US airports are all Kxxx, while those in Hawaii are PHxx (Pacific/Hawaii), and so on. I think the IATA just strips the leading C, for the most part, for the Canadian airports, but I'm not positive. Incidentally, there are only a handful of Canadian airports for which the IATA code does not start with Y; most of these exceptions start with Z, although at least one (Aklavik - LAK - if memory serves) is otherwise.

Carol

This is something I never knew, from www.gonomad.com:

IAD, DCA, EYW, and PHF: Cites that begin with the letters K, W, and N aren’t allowed to have airport codes beginning with the first letters of their proper names. The letters K and W are reserved for radio and television stations. The letter N is for Naval Air Station’s usage. So city airports beginning with the above letters have to be creative; for instance, cities like Washington, DC have airport codes like IAD and DCA; the code for Key West, Florida, is EYW, while Newport News’ code is PHF, short for Patrick Henry Field.

And after years of wondering, I finally know why St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport is PIE.

PIE: St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport used to be a military installation known as Pinellas Army Airfield; as a result, the “PIE” abbreviation came from the name Pinellas. It is in this area where the first ever passenger airline ticket was sold on January 1, 1914. Airport officials have actually sent edible PIES to travel agencies and businesses to encourage people to fly to this Florida hot spot!

And why New Orleans is MSY:

MSY: Last, and certainly the best airport code story of all is the three letter code designation of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. On the last day of 1910, John Moisant, the first person to build and fly a plane with an all metal frame, and the first pilot to fly over the English Channel with a passenger and an animal, died of a broken neck after he was thrown out of his nose-diving aircraft at the current location of New Orleans’ major airport. Stock yards for cattle were later put on the land where Moisant met his fate. The owners wanted to honor John Moisant, so they called the stock yards the Moisant Stock Yards, or MSY for short.

Carol