The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! - CGP Grey [16:03]

TL;DW summary written with claude.ai:

The video explores the confusing and convoluted system behind the 3-letter IATA airport codes used to designate airports worldwide. It explains that IATA, the International Air Transport Association based in Montreal, coordinates these codes between airlines and aviation agencies globally to aid communication and logistics. However, conflicting interests, overlapping jurisdictions (like the separate FAA codes in the US), and legacy holdovers have resulted in a somewhat chaotic lack of standardization or location information encoded in codes. For instance, codes don’t always match airport names, countries wanted certain letters like Canada claiming all the Ys, and larger cities have multiple codes and “mega-codes.” The video traces the tangled history that led to the current codes, such as how the Ys relate to Canadian radio call signs. Ultimately, the IATA codes are primarily for logistics in routing baggage, not passengers. The speaker concludes that while airport codes don’t make much sense systematically, they remain a critical and ubiquitous part of global air travel.