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The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

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Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#11
post #6

You 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.…

Funnily enough, CGP Grey also made a video about that[1]. [1]: https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw

That’s the same video as the post, unless I’m missing something.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#12

The 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…

#3 has RFML - Refugee Meal. I wonder what that is.

A lot of airlines have done refugee flights at one point or another, so I guess they needed a way to tell the ground crew to load whatever special foods were needed.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#13

The 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…

#3 has RFML - Refugee Meal. I wonder what that is.

Big Mac Meal.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#14

The 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…

#3 has RFML - Refugee Meal. I wonder what that is.

Bread and water

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#16
Also interesting how old this system is and how everything is assigned once and never updated. Saint Petersburg airport is LED because the city was called Leningrad at the time the codes were assigned. Aeroflot, the largest Russian airline, has code SU, most probably because Soviet Union, and because it was the only Soviet airline.

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#17

The 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…

#3 has RFML - Refugee Meal. I wonder what that is.

Given that the only references I can find online appear to be copies of the Wikipedia entry, I’m a bit suspicious.

Two entries were added by an anonymous contributor: CAKE and RFML.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Air...

Re: The maddening mess of airport codes [video]

#18
post #8

The 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 always wondered about the IATA meal code CAKE, and what it might have involved.

It's a lie.
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