From the iconic JFK in New York City to the comical LOL in Lovelock, Nevada, airport codes are an integral and much-loved facet of aviation, for professional aviators and part-time enthusiasts alike. In the second part (see part one here) of our deep dive into the most interesting, important or unusual IATA identifiers, we examine some of North America’s significant codes.
While each of IATA’s identifiers must be unique, Canadian airport codes share one thing in common – they all begin with the letter Y. Prior to the introduction of three-letter codes (which are now standard), the country’s aviation gateways were assigned two letters corresponding with the nearest weather monitoring station, with Y for ‘Yes’ added to signify those with a beacon. When Canada’s codes were standardised in line with IATA’s requirements, it was agreed the letter Y would be kept at the beginning of all identifiers.
As for the YZ portion of Toronto Pearson International Airport, that dates back to the Canadian National Railway, which had two-letter identifiers for Morse code. The station reference for Malton, Ontario was YZ. Toronto/Pearson originally operated as Malton Airport in 1939 on the same site that had housed…
