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The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
51–60 of 159 posts
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#52You think airport codes are bad, try airline codes. The IATA standard is still only two (2) letters, leading to insanity like recycling codes after one airline dies, meaning the meaning of the code is time-dependent, and, even worse, "controlled duplicates" where two airlines are intentionally assigned the same code at the same time , since they fly in different parts of the world and pinky-promise to never overlap.…
Or better try telephone region codes, which are ambiguous when a phone number is written as a consecutive string of digits, without +/()/-/space.
You say this as if it’s a universal thing, like IATA codes, but I assume it’s a quirk of some particular country? My region code definitely does not have this.
Sounds pretty nuts to me btw, how does that work when you turn it into standard E.164 format like “+123456789”?
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#53Wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. If you think of the codes as meaningless IDs, there are no problems. The system is unambiguous which is the most important thing. MEL refers to one specific airport and you can know that for sure. All the problems in the video come from trying to use the letters to guess the areas they refer to. They might be related but they might also not. And that’s fine. Your booking site will…
Relative to the infinite recursion of metric paper, it is abject chaos.
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#54The entire world of airline coding (as in "encoding") is fascinating to me: there are all kinds of ancient semi-human-readable formats like ACARS[1] and IATA Teletype[2] that are still pushing data around. Not the mention standard meal codes[3], like BLML for "bland meal" and CLML for "celebration cake meal." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_teletype_system [3]: http…
I've also wondered why cryptically abbrevated things like NOTAMS are still the way they are. It made sense in a teletype/telegraph world where brevity was worth time and money. From wikipedia, this is a typical NOTAM: A1234/06 NOTAMR A1212/06 Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 A)EGLL B)0609050500 C)0704300500 E)DUE WIP TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'. TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B' AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN…
You should try having to read several hundred of them before a long-haul duty!
Good luck trying to find the runway closure notam buried among the 400 reports of a crane within curvature-of-the-earth viewing range of an airport, or the 300 reports of birds that were once seen near, or somewhere near the runway.
Too hilarious not to share: https://fixingnotams.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Field-Gu...
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've also wondered why cryptically abbrevated things like NOTAMS are still the way they are. It made sense in a teletype/telegraph world where brevity was worth time and money. From wikipedia, this is a typical NOTAM: A1234/06 NOTAMR A1212/06 Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 A)EGLL B)0609050500 C)0704300500 E)DUE WIP TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'. TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B' AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN…
> Pilots have to know how to read and understand this stuff. Only justification I can think of is that like mathematical notation, this shorthand, once learned, is unambiguous and conveys meaning better than prose. I don't know if that's really true though. You're correct. It's straightforward for pilots. They can quickly read a NOTAM and understand everything. Also, it's pretty standard and unambiguous worldwide. As…
> You're correct. It's straightforward for pilots. They can quickly read a NOTAM and understand everything.
Pretty sure most pilots would disagree. They're a mess.
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What 'special foods' would be needed for refugees?
If they're famine refugees, something like Plumpy'nut[1] maybe. If they're religious refugees, something catering to their religious restrictions. MREs if the refugee operation is being assisted by a military or disaster aid organization. And so forth. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut
Talking of MREs, some airlines do not allow them as carry on luggage, see https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/....
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#57Nice to see this video here, I know CGP Grey is (or, atleast was) an avid HN lurker. If you're seeing this Grey, I'm a big fan, thanks for the videos and podcasts over the years :)
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#58The entire world of airline coding (as in "encoding") is fascinating to me: there are all kinds of ancient semi-human-readable formats like ACARS[1] and IATA Teletype[2] that are still pushing data around. Not the mention standard meal codes[3], like BLML for "bland meal" and CLML for "celebration cake meal." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_teletype_system [3]: http…
I've also wondered why cryptically abbrevated things like NOTAMS are still the way they are. It made sense in a teletype/telegraph world where brevity was worth time and money. From wikipedia, this is a typical NOTAM: A1234/06 NOTAMR A1212/06 Q)EGTT/QMXLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 A)EGLL B)0609050500 C)0704300500 E)DUE WIP TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'. TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B' AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN…
So, as someone learning to fly, I can say that the METAR format is actually pretty quick to learn and the standardization does make it pretty quick to read, effectively acting as a shorthand. I'm not going to say it couldn't be improved, but it's standardized enough, and contains information that's immediately relevant to everything you're doing, so it's something you pick up quick.
The same is not really true of the NOTAMs, at least as far as I can tell. They're much less standardized, being mostly just plain text with weird awkward abbreviations and all caps that make them slower to scan. There's all kinds of mostly irrelevant metadata; and a lot of the time there are so many of them, most of them not really relevant, that it's really easy to lose track of what is important.
So, I don't think there's much pressing reason to change the METAR format, but oh god do they need to reform the NOTAM system, both the format and better filtering for actual relevance.
Note that this is coming from a student pilot, but I've also seen more experienced pilots express similar frustration with NOTAMs.
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#59There's also https://airportcod.es/ which shows more detail behind each airport's code.
What a delightful little website! Thanks for sharing!
Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or better try telephone region codes, which are ambiguous when a phone number is written as a consecutive string of digits, without +/()/-/space.
You say this as if it’s a universal thing, like IATA codes, but I assume it’s a quirk of some particular country? My region code definitely does not have this. Sounds pretty nuts to me btw, how does that work when you turn it into standard E.164 format like “+123456789”?
Britain has different length area codes. 020 is London, 0121 is Birmingham, 01234 is Bedford, 015396 is Sedburgh, population 2700.
The local part of the number is 8, 7, 6 or 5 digits accordingly.
I never found this to be a problem. If you're dialing locally from a land line, you usually know the local code. For national or international dialing it doesn't matter.
Occasionally people put the space in the wrong place, like 0207 77777777 for a London number.