>From DFW to LHR with an ORD layover Frequent flier Bobby Finken once found himself trying to book an airplane seat and struggling with the reservationist over the destination. "I had a devil of a time with the lady. I kept saying 'Palm Springs' and she kept giving me information for West Palm Beach," Mr. Finken said. So, he changed his tactics and used the Palm Springs airport code, PSP. Using the three-letter airport locator is an easy way to avoid such misunderstandings, he said. "I use them all the time. I use them when I'm booking online or when I'm making reservations. It really helps," said Mr. Finken, who flies about 100,000 miles a year. He and other business travelers are picking up on the codes that pilots, controllers and travel agents have used for decades to identify airports. Once considered inside information for airline workers and aviation buffs, the locators now roll off travelers' tongues with increasing frequency. "People are flying so much more that civil aviation terms are coming more and more into the lexicon," said John Hotard, spokesman for American Airlines Inc. "The ones who really know the stuff are the road warriors, and you'd expect them to since they've acquired it throughout the years. But there are a lot of other travelers out there that now know airport codes, too." The codes, which appear on some baggage tags, printed flight guides and tickets, have become better known because people once needed them to book tickets on the Web. "It used to be - although not as much anymore - that you had to know the code," said Lorraine Sileo, an analyst for PhoCusWright, which tracks online travel for the industry. "They've now improved the whole search experience. "But even if you do have a friendly system, it behooves you to know the code. It makes the experience quicker and easier." PhoCusWright estimates that online travel sales will be worth about $26.5 billion this year, up $6 billion from 2001. As online sales increase, so does code knowledge. "Enough people fly so they know what they are now," said Al Comeaux, a spokesman for Fort Worth-based Travelocity.com Inc. "If you're going to book things, it goes a lot quicker once you know the three-letter code." The codes have been around since the 1930s, when airline service exploded. The locators were developed from the two-letter identifiers that the National Weather Service used to tabulate city data. "A bureaucrat had a brainstorm, and the three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17,576 different combinations," said Dave English, who researched the subject for Air Line Pilot, a journal for the Air Line Pilots Association. Existing airports had an 'X' added after the weather station code. And voila, the Los Angeles airport became LAX. Other airport codes were more intuitive. For instance, the first three letters of city names make up some codes - ATL for Atlanta, BOS for Boston and MIA for Miami. "A system like this doesn't seem a big deal, and then 50 years later, everyone is using these air codes," said Mr. English, who is also a pilot for American Eagle. "It has a real history. The system has evolved. It didn't just spring in existence, so it's not perfect." Sioux City, Iowa, would agree. For years, city leaders have been trying to change the airport's three-letter identifier, SUX, because they say it doesn't. "Some of them are so weird," said Robert Serling, an author of aviation books who went through flight attendant school as research for a novel and flunked the test on codes. "Orlando, Florida, is MCO. Don't ask me why. Some of them make no sense," he said. As convoluted as it is, there really is a method to the madness. With Orlando International Airport the code derives from the original airfield name, McCoy Air Force Base, rather than the nearby city. Some others have similar backgrounds. Chicago O'Hare is ORD because of the its original orchard location. Nashville's code, BNA, kicks off with a salute to Col. Harry Berry who helped build the airport. There are other caveats to the name game. Mr. English said that some codes developed because special interest groups successfully lobbied the government for their own special letters. The Navy saved all the new "N" codes, so naval aviators learn to fly at NPA in Pensacola or head to fighter weapons school at Miramar, Calif., known as NKX. The Federal Communications Commission set aside the "W" and "K" codes for radio stations, and "Q" was designated for international telecommunications. The Canadians reserved all of the "Y" codes, setting up such curiosities as YUL for Montreal and YYC for Calgary. The different rulings and special dispensations mean there are some code doozies. For instance, the airport in Newark, N.J., couldn't start with an N, a W or a K. Hence, it has the EWR code. Key West, Fla., also couldn't start with a K or W. That's how it wound up with EYW. "To the uninitiated there is no rhyme or reason to the three-letter code," Mr. Hotard said. The difference of one letter can decide if you or your bags are going to Abilene or Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Amsterdam, Jordan's Amman or Amarillo; San Diego or San Antonio; the capital of New Mexico or Sana'a in Yemen. Such obscurities thrill folks in the know, who love to rattle off the more oddball names they've collected. "How about MSY? That's New Orleans," said Ed Stewart, spokesman for Southwest Airlines Co. The city's Louis Armstrong International Airport once had the name of Moisant Field. "In my business, we live those every day. Nobody would write down the name of a city. They use a city code." Even as more travelers have learned the coding, the need to do so is lessening. Travel Web sites are trying to become more user-friendly and don't require them as before. It's not even as likely for them to show up on bag tags. Today, many airlines are using bar codes instead. "They could be becoming oddities," Southwest spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said. Staff writer Terry Maxon contributed to this report. E-mail: kfairbank@dallasnews.com <mailto:kfairbank@dallasnews.com> http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/061002dnbuscodes.1d23a.html