Plane landing in airportAnyone familiar with Miley Cyrus’ Party In The USA will know that the code for Los Angeles is LAX. But that’s not the only one – Portland is PDX, for instance, and our own Birmingham is BHX. Not all airport codes, of course, end in the letter. But that doesn’t mean the “X” ending is random. Nope – in fact, you’ll find that most of the airports with the iconic ending were so named in the ’30s and ’40s.Why do so many airport codes end in X? Hadleigh Diamond, a provider at SCS Chauffeur, explained the “X” is “a leftover from the 1930s and 1940s, when the aviation industry expanded airport codes from two to three letters to improve communication across telex and radio systems”.As Business Insider reported, the increased number of international airports required greater specificity for accurate communication.So, it was decided that airports should have three letters in their code rather than the existing standard of two. Los Angeles, which was originally “LA”, and Birmingham, which was once just “BH”, had to follow so, to make things easier, lots of airports just filled in the gap with an “X”, a “filler letter”. “Travellers often assume the ‘X’ stands for something technical, but it’s really a relic from a much simpler time,” Diamond said.“Knowing where these codes come from is a fun reminder of how fast air travel evolved.”But why are airport codes in general so random?There are a few reasons why airport codes might seem baffling at first – for instance, Orlando International Airport’s initials are MCO, because the site used to be called the McCoy Air Force Base. And Canadian airport codes are based on the city’s weather reporting destinations, not the airports themselves.Often, though (as with New York’s JFK), cities with multiple airports choose to name them by the airport itself rather than the city. That’s for the same reason as the “X” addition: the more specificity in airport communications, the better. Related...I Just Learned What The Loop On The Back Of Shirts Is For, And I Had No IdeaI Just Learned The Real History Of Monopoly, And It s DarkPeople Are Realising Why Microwave Meals Have Such A Long Shelf Life, And I Had It All Wrong
Monday 13 October 2025
huffingtonpost - 6 hours ago
I Just Learned Why So Many Airport Names End In X , And Huh


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