Flyerist.com

Airport codes and their origins

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:54:06 +0000

Very good piece I found last week, a bit dated (from 1994), but it still applies.

When the Wright brothers first took to the air in 1903, there was no need for coding airports since an airport was literally any convenient field with a strong wind. However, the National Weather Service did tabulate data from cities around the country using a two-letter identification system. Early airlines simply copied this system, but as airline service exploded in the 1930’s, towns without weather station codes needed identification. Some bureaucrat had a brainstorm and the three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17,576 different combinations. To ease the transition, existing airports placed an X after the weather station code. The Los Angeles tag became LAX, Portland became PDX, Phoenix became PHX and so on. Incidentally at the historic sand dune in Kitty Hawk where the first flight occurred the U.S. National Parks Service maintains a tiny airstrip called FFA—First Flight Airport.

See it here.

Stranded? No, you showed up early.

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:51:27 +0000

So a guy shows up to the airport 5 hours early due to a meeting ending early. And, he’s shocked to find that there are no seats available! Well, yes, that’s true. But calling it stranded? That’s fishing for a story. Via Chicago Tribune.

News stories about airlines with women in tears becoming a trend?

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:33:33 +0000

Maybe as the summer travel season begins, these stories start to spread. But I have notice that there have been several stories, most recently the autistic toddler that was removed from an American Eagle flight in RDU. The story quotes the mother as “at that point I just broke down”. Other recent stories mentioning women crying in the face of airlines are this one (AA) and this one(US). Why are the media focusing on the women in these stories “breaking down” or using cliche lines like, “at this point I was in tears”? It’s basically putting a travel disruption on the same level as a death in the family or a large natural disaster. This isn’t to point out that crying is out of place in an airport (although one may make that argument, along with general outlandish behavior), but that the news media are using it as a symbol of “just how bad things are out there”.

Flying over mountains

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:06:23 +0000

So I’ll start things off with this: Flying over mountains with flash. Music is Jean Michel Jarre.

So, Welcome to Flyerist.

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:02:48 +0000

This is my blog that I started to organize the massive amount of information coming out about the airline industry lately. Who am I? I work for one of the “Legacy” carriers in the flight operations division, however I am not a pilot. I’ll try and continue to keep up with the fast pace in airline news in the months ahead.