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Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn
St. John's International Airport is YYT. I guess the airport code has some sort of WW2 significance, which I was told when I suggested St. John's could claim the YSJ Airport code from Saint John if we ever get that combined Fredericton-Saint John International Airport built in New Brunswick. 
So it certainly helps to know and use the codes for the two SJ's airports when you are booking tickets to either city. 
Some cities have good airport codes, like Saint John has in YSJ, or San Fransisco has in SFO, and I guess how Vancouver has in YVR. Some other cities, like London, have something that seems completely random like YXU. Like, what's the reasoning behind YXU as the code for London, Ontario?
What really grinds my gears with Canadian airport codes is the near universal rule that airports must start with a Y. Like, Y the hell is that?
Boston gets BOS for an airport code, Miami gets MIA... why the hell can't Montreal get MTL and Toronto get TOR? |
Canada's Y airport IATA codes have their origins in the 1930s and came to be from a combination of weather stations, the early days of radio and two letter railway station codes. The Y = "YES" if the airport had a weather station.
From Google AI:
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Most Canadian airport codes start with 'Y' because it's a legacy from the country's radio and weather tower system, which was established in the 1930s. When the International Air Transport Association (IATA) adopted a three-letter code system, Canada added 'Y' to existing two-letter radio codes to indicate the presence of a weather station ("Yes"), differentiating them from U.S. airports where 'Y' was rarely used. For example, the code for Malton, Ontario, which is where Toronto Pearson Airport is located, was YZ, so the airport code became YYZ.
Origin of the 'Y' prefix
Railway codes: The original two-letter codes for Canadian locations were based on stations along the Canadian Pacific Railway, with a two-letter Morse code for each.
Weather stations: When airports were built, they often reused the codes of nearby railway stations. If the airport had a weather station, a 'Y' was added to the front of the code to indicate "Yes".
Differentiation: Adding the 'Y' helped distinguish Canadian airports from those in the United States, as the 'Y' was less common in the U.S. system.
Standardization: When IATA standardized to three-letter codes, Canada largely kept this 'Y' prefix for airports that had a weather station, with 'W' used for locations without one.
Examples of 'Y' in action
YVR: Vancouver's railway station code was VR, so the airport code became YVR.
YOW: The code for Ottawa's railway station was OW, which became the airport code YOW.
YYZ: The original radio call sign for Malton, where Toronto Pearson is, was YZ. This was converted to YYZ for the airport.
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So there you have it. Y is exclusive to any airport that handles at least 50K pax per year given the typical presence of weather stations at aerodromes of any significance at the time the codes were first established. There are a bunch of aerodromes with scheduled service in Canada that don't start with a Y that have scheduled airline service but they're tiny like XGR = Kangiqsualujjuaq, QC. ZBF, which will soon lose AC and all sked service was historically the largest non-Y airport in Canada by pax count (in the 35-40K/year range) with scheduled service. ZBF = Bathurst, NB.
Y is not exclusive to Canada. YKM an YUM are two US airports with scheduled airline service that I can think of off the top of my head and I know there's a handful of others around the world like that.
Regarding MTL & TOR, like other multi-airport cities Montreal (YMQ) and Toronto (YTO) have city IATA codes, which are useful in res systems & for res agents when looking up all flights to a city instead of just a specific airport.
MTL is the IATA code for a general aviation airport in Australia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitland_Airport and TOR for a rural airport in Wyoming:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrington_Municipal_Airport So take that Toronto & Montreal, LOL.
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