Registered Codes
Both ICAO and IATA have their own airport and airline code systems. ICAO uses 4-letter airport codes (vs. IATA's 3-letter codes). The ICAO code is based on the region and country of the airport—for example, Charles de Gaulle Airport has an ICAO code of LFPG, where L indicates Southern Europe, F, France, PG, Paris de Gaulle, while Orly Airport has the code LFPO (the 3rd letter sometimes refers to the particular flight information region (FIR) or the last two may be arbitrary). In most of the world, the ICAO and IATA codes are unrelated; for example, Charles de Gaulle Airport has an IATA code of CDG and Orly, ORY. However, the location prefix for continental United States is K and the ICAO codes are usually the IATA code with this prefix—for example, the ICAO code for LAX is KLAX. Canada follows a similar pattern, where a prefix of C is usually added to an IATA code to create the ICAO code. For example, Edmonton is YEG or CYEG. (In contrast, airports in Hawaii are in the Pacific region and so have ICAO codes that start with PH; Kona International Airport's code is PHKO.) Note that not all airports are assigned codes in both systems—for example, airports that do not have airline service may not need an IATA code.
ICAO also assigns 3-letter airline codes (vs. the more-familiar 2-letter IATA codes—for example, UAL vs. UA for United Airlines). ICAO also provides telephony designators to aircraft operators worldwide, a one- or two-word designator used on the radio, usually, but not always, similar to the aircraft operator name. For example, the identifier for Japan Airlines International is JAL and the designator is Japan Air, but Aer Lingus is EIN and Shamrock. Thus, a Japan Airlines flight numbered 111 would be written as "JAL111" and pronounced "Japan Air One One One" on the radio, while a similarly numbered Aer Lingus would be written as "EIN111" and pronounced "Shamrock One One One".
ICAO maintains the standards for aircraft registration ("tail numbers"), including the alphanumeric codes that identify the country of registration. For example, airplanes registered in the United States have tail numbers starting with N.
ICAO is also responsible for issuing alphanumeric aircraft type codes containing two to four characters. These codes provide the identification that is typically used in flight plans. The Boeing 747 would use B741, B742, B743, etc., depending on the particular variant.
Read more about this topic: International Civil Aviation Organization
Famous quotes containing the words registered and/or codes:
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