What is an airport code?

Most airports actually carry two different ones. The three-letter code is the IATA code, the one you see on your boarding pass, luggage tag and departure board — built for passengers and travel bookings. The four-letter code is the ICAO code, used mainly by pilots, air traffic control and in flight planning, and it often (though not always) starts with a letter tied to the country or region the airport is in. Both point to the same airport; they just serve different audiences and different parts of the system.

Once you know an airport's code, it becomes a kind of shorthand for the place itself — which is exactly why it works so well as a piece of art in its own right, set alongside the airport's name and coordinates on a personalised airport code print. Every one of those codes belongs to a runway somewhere, numbered by its own logic.

Written by Craig Fearn, Aviation Gift Co.