Airport Codes

When did the use of airport codes (LGA, EWR, LAX etc) become common
practice? With computer reservation systems?

I have some old tickets and baggage stubs from the '50s and the
cities are all written out.

Thanks

When did the use of airport codes (LGA, EWR, LAX etc) become common
practice? With computer reservation systems?

http://tinyurl.com/4rvts

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

Long before Computer Reservations systems. Probably around 1935 or so.

wrote in message
oups.com...
When did the use of airport codes (LGA, EWR, LAX etc) become common
practice? With computer reservation systems?

I have some old tickets and baggage stubs from the '50s and the
cities are all written out.

Thanks

On 1 Apr 2005 15:52:56 -0800, wrote:

When did the use of airport codes (LGA, EWR, LAX etc) become common
practice? With computer reservation systems?

http://tinyurl.com/4rvts

Short designators becme needed by the 1930s because radio
navigation systms had been installed and, since they used Morse
code (and still do), needed simple names. It screws things up
when you change the navigatin system names, notwithstanding the
IDL-JFK change, so the code tends to remain, e.g., ORD was
Chicago's Orchard Airport.

An intereting oddity. In the 1950s Kansas City designed a large
airport to sereve as a hub for transcontinental air traffic,
which require a stop for refuelling of prop planes, and to serve
as a hub and home for TWA. It was to be called Midcontinent
International Airport and got the code MCI, whihc it retains to
this day.

But it never worked out. The Boeing 707 came on the scene and it
didn't require a refuelling stop in the middle of the country and
the airport languished, subsequently dropping the grandiose name
of Midcontinent International. I flew out of MCI in the early
1980s and the layout of the airport seemed far too grand for the
one terminal it had.

Then, Wichita decided its airport was Mid-Continent Airport (not
international, though) but it has the code ICT.



************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On 1 Apr 2005 15:52:56 -0800, wrote:

When did the use of airport codes (LGA, EWR, LAX etc) become common
practice? With computer reservation systems?

http://tinyurl.com/4rvts

Short designators becme needed by the 1930s because radio
navigation systms had been installed and, since they used Morse
code (and still do), needed simple names. It screws things up
when you change the navigatin system names, notwithstanding the
IDL-JFK change, so the code tends to remain, e.g., ORD was
Chicago's Orchard Airport.

An intereting oddity. In the 1950s Kansas City designed a large
airport to sereve as a hub for transcontinental air traffic,
which require a stop for refuelling of prop planes, and to serve
as a hub and home for TWA. It was to be called Midcontinent
International Airport and got the code MCI, whihc it retains to
this day.

But it never worked out. The Boeing 707 came on the scene and it
didn't require a refuelling stop in the middle of the country and
the airport languished, subsequently dropping the grandiose name
of Midcontinent International. I flew out of MCI in the early
1980s and the layout of the airport seemed far too grand for the
one terminal it had.

Then, Wichita decided its airport was Mid-Continent Airport (not
international, though) but it has the code ICT.



************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *