Free tool
Airport code converter
Type an ICAO, IATA or FAA code and get the matching identifiers and airport. When a code belongs to more than one airport, all candidates are shown.
ICAO, IATA or a local code. It works out which you meant.
Type at least two characters.
What are ICAO, IATA, and FAA codes?
Three organizations assign codes to airports. Each system serves a different audience, covers a different set of airports, and follows different rules.
- ICAO (four characters)
- The International Civil Aviation Organization assigns location indicators to airports, heliports, and weather stations worldwide. Pilots and air traffic controllers use ICAO codes in flight plans, clearances, and weather reports. The first letter identifies a world region. The second usually identifies a country.
- IATA (three letters)
- The International Air Transport Association assigns three-letter codes to airports with scheduled airline service. Passengers see IATA codes on boarding passes, luggage tags, and booking systems. The letters carry no geographic meaning.
- FAA LID (three or four characters)
- The FAA assigns location identifiers to all US airports, including private strips that have no ICAO or IATA code. These are national codes: unique within the US but not worldwide. Other countries maintain similar national systems.
Why three systems exist
The three systems grew from different needs at different times. In the 1930s the US Weather Bureau assigned three-letter identifiers to weather stations, many of which were at airports. When ICAO formed in 1944, it created a four-character system with a built-in geographic structure so that a code reveals the region and country. IATA adopted three-letter codes in 1945 to simplify airline ticketing and baggage handling.
The systems overlap but do not align. LAX is both an IATA code and an FAA LID for the same airport, but its ICAO code is KLAX. Some airports have all three codes. Many have only one.
How this works
- How the three systems work
- IATA assigns three-letter codes to airports with commercial airline service. ICAO assigns four-character location indicators to any airport with a tower or an instrument procedure. Many countries also maintain a national code (the FAA's "lid" in the US). A three-character input is an IATA or national code. A four-character input is an ICAO identifier.
- Coverage differs across systems
- IATA covers a few thousand airports. ICAO covers tens of thousands. Most airports in the world have an ICAO identifier and no IATA code at all. This tool includes every airport with an IATA code or a four-character identifier, not only airports with airline service.
- A three-letter code can mean two airports
- IATA codes are unique worldwide. National codes are not, and the two sets overlap. Aurora Municipal in Illinois is ARR to the FAA, while ARR is Alto Rio Senguer in Argentina to IATA. In the current data, more than a thousand codes point to more than one airport.
ICAO
~38,000
FAA
~20,000
IATA
~9,000
ICAO region prefixes
The first letter of an ICAO code identifies the world region. You can identify the part of the world an airport is in from this letter alone.
| Prefix | Region | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| A | Western South Pacific | AYPY (Port Moresby), AGGH (Honiara) |
| B | Iceland / Greenland | BIKF (Keflavik), BGBW (Narsarsuaq) |
| C | Canada | CYYZ (Toronto), CYVR (Vancouver) |
| D | West Africa | DNMM (Lagos), DGAA (Accra) |
| E | Northern Europe | EGLL (London Heathrow), EHAM (Amsterdam) |
| F | Southern Africa | FAOR (Johannesburg), FALE (Durban) |
| G | Northwest Africa | GMMN (Casablanca), GOBD (Dakar) |
| H | East Africa | HKJK (Nairobi), HAAB (Addis Ababa) |
| K | Contiguous United States | KJFK (New York JFK), KLAX (Los Angeles) |
| L | Southern Europe | LFPG (Paris CDG), LEMD (Madrid), LIRF (Rome) |
| M | Central America / Mexico | MMMX (Mexico City), MROC (San Jose) |
| N | South Pacific | NZAA (Auckland), NFFN (Nadi) |
| O | Middle East / South Asia | OMDB (Dubai), OEJN (Jeddah) |
| P | Eastern North Pacific | PHNL (Honolulu), PANC (Anchorage) |
| R | Western North Pacific | RJTT (Tokyo Haneda), RKSI (Incheon) |
| S | South America | SBGR (Sao Paulo), SCEL (Santiago) |
| T | Caribbean | TNCM (St Maarten), TBPB (Barbados) |
| U | Russia / Former USSR | UUEE (Moscow SVO), UHWW (Vladivostok) |
| V | South / Southeast Asia | VHHH (Hong Kong), VIDP (Delhi) |
| W | Maritime Southeast Asia | WIII (Jakarta), WMKK (Kuala Lumpur) |
| Y | Australia | YSSY (Sydney), YMML (Melbourne) |
| Z | China / Mongolia | ZBAA (Beijing), ZSPD (Shanghai Pudong) |
Airport codes that don’t match the city
Most IATA codes abbreviate the city or airport name. Some do not, because IATA assigned the code to an earlier name, a nearby place, or a person. These codes rarely change, even after a rename.
| IATA | Airport | Why |
|---|---|---|
| ORD | Chicago O'Hare | Orchard Place Airport, the original name |
| MCO | Orlando | McCoy Air Force Base, the military field it replaced |
| MSY | New Orleans | Moisant Stock Yards, near the original terminal |
| SDF | Louisville | Standiford Field, the airport's former name |
| CVG | Cincinnati | Covington, Kentucky — the airport is across the state line |
| IAD | Washington Dulles | Honors Secretary of State John Foster Dulles |
| YYZ | Toronto Pearson | Y prefix for Canada; YZ was the radio beacon code |
| PEK | Beijing Capital | Peking, the historical English name for Beijing |
| GIG | Rio de Janeiro | Galeão, the island the airport sits on |
| NRT | Tokyo Narita | Narita, the city 60 km east of central Tokyo |
| GRU | São Paulo Guarulhos | Guarulhos, the municipality north of the city |
| PDX | Portland | PD for Portland, X appended to avoid conflicts |
Frequently asked questions
- Why do US ICAO codes start with K?
- ICAO assigned the letter K to the contiguous United States. The letter dates back to radio call sign allocations from the 1920s. Alaska uses P (Pacific region) and Hawaii also uses P. Territories in the Caribbean use T.
- Do all airports have an IATA code?
- No. IATA assigns codes only to airports with scheduled airline service. Most of the world's airports are general-aviation fields, military bases, or private strips. These have an ICAO identifier or a national code but no IATA code.
- Why is Chicago O'Hare ORD instead of OHR?
- The airport's original name was Orchard Place Airport, which gave it the identifier ORD. When the city renamed it after Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the code stayed. IATA codes rarely change because airline systems depend on them.
- What is the difference between ICAO and IATA codes?
- ICAO codes have four characters and follow a geographic structure: the first letter identifies a world region, and the second usually identifies a country. IATA codes have three letters and carry no geographic meaning. Pilots and air traffic control use ICAO codes. Airlines and booking systems use IATA codes.
- Can an airport lose its IATA code?
- Yes. IATA retires codes when an airport loses all scheduled airline service. IATA can later reassign the retired code to a different airport. ICAO identifiers are more stable because they follow the physical location, not commercial service.
- What happens when an airport has no code at all?
- Small private strips and helipads may have no ICAO, IATA, or national code. They appear on charts by name and coordinates only. A pilot files a flight plan to an uncoded field by entering its latitude and longitude.
- How can I tell which type of code I'm looking at?
- Count the characters and check the format. Four characters is almost always an ICAO code (KJFK, EGLL). Three letters could be IATA (JFK, LHR) or a US FAA identifier (MVY). Three characters with a digit (2G4, N87) is a US FAA local identifier — IATA codes never contain digits. A single letter can narrow it further: K as the first of four characters means contiguous US (ICAO), while three letters starting with Y are often Canadian IATA codes.
4 chars → ICAO (KJFK)
3 letters → IATA or FAA (JFK)
digit present → FAA local (2G4)
- What is a metropolitan area code like NYC or LON?
- IATA assigns city codes to metropolitan areas served by multiple airports. NYC covers all New York City airports (JFK, LGA, EWR). LON covers London airports (LHR, LGW, STN, LTN, SEN, LCY). PAR covers Paris airports (CDG, ORY). WAS covers Washington DC airports (DCA, IAD, BWI). Booking systems use these codes to search all airports in a city at once. They are not airport codes and do not appear on boarding passes or luggage tags.NYC → JFK LGA EWRLON → LHR LGW STNPAR → CDG ORY