Strange Airport Codes, Part III: When the Kids in the Family Want to Know
Airport codes sometimes have some strange three-letter combinations that those who travel notice like kids in the family. For those who travel, strange three-letter airport codes might cause people of all ages to wonder, like the kids in the family. This article on strange airport codes is from cities that are known to kids and the rest of the family, for people travel to these air centers, too, but these codes aren’t as well-known as JFK or LAX.
Have your children ever asked you questions like this en route to certain cities by airplane:
“Mom, why isNashvilleBNA? BNA doesn’t stand forNashville!” “What does RSW have to do with grandma’s home ofFort Myers?” “DoesKansas Cityhave hidden letters in its name since our airline tickets say MCI?”
Well, now you can give the kids the answers to such airport codes questions as the mysteries behind a number of these strange airport codes will be revealed here!
CAE
Columbia, South Carolina has a mysterious letter “e” as its third letter for its designation. Could it be a filler letter or is there an interesting airport codes story regarding Columbia Metropolitan Airport? The small town of Cayce is due northwest of this travel hub, and might explain the code, but it’s not totally certain according to the CAE airport official I contacted in July 2007 via email. This place has the distinction for being the training grounds for Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25 flight crews, which would conduct a bombing raid over Tokyo in April of 1942. This raid helped to raise the morale of the USA, which was struggling initially in both the European and Pacific campaigns of World War II. CAE offers the public, including kids, free tours and can even arrange scavenger hunts according to its website
BNA
Today’s Nashville International Airport still retains the airport code of BNA, which honors World War I veteran and air transport advocate Colonel Harry S. Berry, according to the airports’s website He was Tennessee’s WPA Administrator. The WPA was one of Frankin D. Roosevelt’s alphabet soup programs that helped put people to back to work during the Great Depression, and was responsible for the building of Berry Field in 1937, with the “B” being for Berry and the “NA” referring to the epicenter of country music. So despite the name change in 1988, this is one of those three letter airport codes which is here to remind people of the past.
Taking the kids to Louisville for a family reunion? Well, Louisville has one of the airport codes which probably doesn’t make any sense all to anyone involved with family travel, including the kids, unless you go back to its roots of being partly built on ground owned by the family of Dr. Elisha David Standiford, who was a legislator and held high positions in local transportation companies like the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, according to CarolYar.com In 1947, Standiford Field (where the SDF comes from) opened to the public, but has since expanded to be a heavy airfreight and international air-sorting hub for another three-letter entity: UPS .
RSW
The commercial airbase that serves the residents of Fort Myers, Florida is called Southwest Florida International Airport. While the “SW” letters make sense, in that they stand for Southwest, the “R” seems to not make any sense until you go back in history to 1983, when the airport was opened and originally named Southwest Florida Regional Airport according to emails I got from an official working there in November 2007; that is, the “R” stands for Regional.
BDL
Hartford, Connecticut’s commercial air travel center is named Bradley International Airport; and thus the BDL code designation. The airport name and its three-letter code honor the first fatality at the venue, which had been constructed in 1941 as a military air base. On August 21, 1941, Lt. Eugene Bradley died in a training exercise there at the age of 24, according to the airport’s website You can tell the kids in your family that the first commercial air flight out of this airport occurred in 1947 via Eastern Airlines.
Columbus, Mississippi appears to have one of the strange three-letter airport codes. So, what do the letters GTR have to do with an airport located here? Well, GTR stands for Golden Triangle Regional Airport, which serves two other cities besides Columbus that the family might travel to; that is, Starkville and West Point, which form a triangle. Ironically, you have to travel a bit south of the “triangle” to get to GTR. Just type in the airport’s address at Mapquest.com, which is 2080 Airport Rd., Columbus, Mississippi to see what I mean.
SNA
The Duke”, a family movie star favorite, has a commercial travel locale named after him called John Wayne Airport, which is located in the heart of Orange County, California, or “The O.C.”, which was a tv show that the kids followed. Yet neither Orange County nor John Wayne have the letters “SNA”, so what’s up with this of strange airport codes? It comes from the name Santa Ana, the city where the airport is located, according to the homepage of ocair.com.
TYS
Knoxville, Tennessee is a city which boasts one of the strange three-letter airport codes that doesn’t match its place name. The TYS designation comes from the name Tyson. In 1918, during the First World War, a pilot by the name of Charles McGhee Tyson was killed after crashing into the waters off the English coast. His parents were a rich and prominent family in “The Marble City”, and years after the war ended, a piece of land for an airstrip was donated by Charles’ mother Bettie on the condition that it be named after her deceased son, which is called McGhee Tyson Airport to this day, according to the website of this air center
Kansas City, Missouri has one of the most unusual airport codes stories. Before the air travel complex was dedicated in the fall of 1972, it was called Mid-Continent International Airport, of which the MCI designation makes sense. But politicians in Kansas City decided to give it a name that would make a better connection with the city, so the name Kansas City International Airport replaced its original one according to the airport’s website
But since American cities that start with K have to begin with a letter other than K because this letter is for radio and television stations, the original MCI code was kept since it was registered already. If you and the kids think you’re going to travel to Kansas City, Missouri because your luggage tags say KCI, you’re gonna be in for a big surprise, because that happens to be the three-letter code for Kono, Indonesia!
My first and second airport codes articles that the family will enjoy reading are here and here
Some of the sources used in this airport codes article that’s of interest to those who travel like kids in the family:
Mike Flack, Email: “Re: Question about CAE Airport”, July 19, 2007 (Columbia Metropolitan Airport)
BNA History: http://www.flynashville.com/about/history_bna.aspx Nashville International Airport
Honorable Elisha D. Standiford, M.D.: www.carolyar.com/ElishaStandiford.htm CarolYar.com
Barbara-Anne S. Urrutia, (2) Emails: “RE: Question about RSW Airport”, November 5, 2007 (Lee County Port Authority)
