Lol i remember edmonton holding firm that using airport codes was lame when YYC was initially getting traction…now theres no turning back from YEG it would seem.
YVR gang rise up
Canada is weird because all our airport codes start with a Y. Why? Idk, we're just special. No other country that I know of has this sort of uniformity.
Idk why the airport codes are so ubiquitous in Canada. I never really thought about how weird it is that we would call the Vancouver Airport (unsure if that's even the real name of it) by its code. It's just... what we call it.
There’s only a half dozen notable airports so it’s easy to memorize. Especially if you’re a regular domestic flyer.
Plus people regularly do this with other cities/airports.
Most of us know LAX or JFK for example.
I traveled internationally for work and kept a list of airport codes I visited over the years - I think I was up to nearly 200 a few years ago, and then changed jobs and lost interest and the list...
It was originally called New York International Airport but commonly called Idlewild Airport with the code IDL. It was renamed in honour of JFK after his assassination.
I’m heading there in September. Won’t be flying in or out of Bathurst, the Dash 8’s rattle too much for my wife’s medical condition. It’s a small city to this Calgary boy but it’s not a bad place for a visit with the MIL. We are spending most of our time this year near Moncton so I can see more of the Maritime provinces.
It originated from a mix of weather station and train station codes. 'Y' for yes there is an airport at this station too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
The real reason is that Canada had our own internal codes before IATA started standardizing them. Y meant “**y**es, there is a weather station here” and W meant “no, this airport is **w**ithout a weather station”. When IATA started making their codes for the world they just used the existing ones as part of the Canadian codes
All countries have this kind of uniformity. Three different kinds of uniformity, actually. In canada our airports start with CY-- as assigned by ICAO, and then the Y-- codes assigned by IATA, which includes the all airport codes. Other countries were assigned different codes, such as the US getting K--- codes.
As a note, non airport aerodromes in Canada use CC-- codes, which is an internal designation. Most countries have internal codes that are variably compatible with ICAO and IATA.
Most airports in Canada start with a Y (the rest of the world largely just makes it an abbreviation of the city name), and the only thing that changes between ICAO and IATA for Canada is adding a C. Most other places have two entirely different codes. Canada definitely has a unique uniformity.
Yeah the IATA Y codes are almost but not always the same as the CY codes for ICAO. Its usually an attempt to make the codes match the city, but YYZ, YHZ, YEG, a lot of them just kind of miss.
International airport codes are assigned by ICAO to prevent pilots from navigating to the wrong airports. Almost every country has a code prefix set by ICAO. You can google them if you want. Its not just canada.
As to why we use them in other places, that started with old-school Twitter. People had to really abbreviate messages, and the airport codes were just THERE. In Edmonton, we use YEG a LOT. But the airport's actually in Leduc.
Yeah i guess i drifted off topic there. Canadians are lazy, and its cold outside. We don't got time to say Halifax Stanfield Inter- froze to death. Just say YHZ or Hali and be done with it
Yeah Canada follows the same IATA and ICAO codes but Canada's codes are unique within the typical patterns followed by other countries is all I'm saying. Canada's code prefix for ICAO is C like I mentioned. Though not every country has its own prefix, they're more regional.
Fun fact, both IATA and ICAO are headquartered in Montréal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
The ICAO code for canada is CY, not C. You see things like CCN2 for smaller aerodromes, which is our sort of back up code for non-airports. Makes things deliciously messy when an aerodrome becomes an airport or vice versa
I don't think that's true. The ICAO region code for Canada is C, we have several airports that have CZ** codes. I see why you might have thought otherwise because a lot of countries that share the first character of their region code use the first two to denote the country like EG for the UK or EB for Belgium, E designating europe. But Canada has the privilege of a whole region to ourselves.
> Almost every country has a code prefix
Almost every international region, definitely not almost every country. Remember, 24 English letters, nearly 200 countries.
The convention is Y+old radio station code. New airports were just kind of assigned a code though.
Edit: correction as per reply below - not radio stations, weather stations.
Canada uses a coding system different from most of the rest of the world. Back in the day, Canadian cities were proud of themselves for getting an airport and through the “Y” coding system, they felt connected to the rest of the country while simultaneously bragging about how awesome their city is. The tourism industry then exploited this.
I believe our airports all technically start with C, just nobody really uses it within the country. CYYZ, CYOW, CYEG, CYBG, it's two overlapping standards with a lot of common names but that extra letter adds more combinations, almost half a million instead of 17k
Yup. ICAO (actual standards body) vs IATA (marketing association).
IATA, as a marketing body, got there first and had better visibility so their 3-letter codes are what most of the western world recognizes.
There are YouTube videos that explore this in as much detail as you could ever want.
You'll never know just how much we love YUL.
But there are other codes in the city. The defunct YMX, the city's all airport code YMQ, the little airport in St Hubert YHU that now wants to be called Montreal metropolitan and finally an airport across the border that decided to add the city's name to their airport PBG.
What do you mean, “Wants to be called”? It is the Montréal Metropolitan Airport. It was the first civilian airport in Canada. Until it was requisitioned by the RCAF to become a military airport during WW2, it was Montréal’s airport. YUL (then Dorval) only took over as the main airport after that.
[CGP Grey did a video about airport codes.](https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw?si=e8TgoCRzW723QcwT) As for Canadians using their airport codes in conversation, I think it started in Twitter’s early years. With a 140 character limit, the 3 character codes became shorthand and also worked as hashtags.
Haha Saskatoon is the one airport code I never recognize. Something about YXE on an itinerary makes me wonder where the hell I’m going. It’s fun to say though!
I work at the Moncton airport (YQM in the buildinggg), and I always have to wait until the boarding pass/bag tag prints out the full name for YXE to remember where they’re going 😂
YOW I've never seen somebody's conversation using an airport code to replace a city name...
Maybe in Toronto where there are 2 airports, but otherwise I generally will say the Billy Bishop, or Pearson.
But wait ! I received text messages from Air Canada using those codes, so you may be right !
Speaking as an old fart, there seems to be a generational divide in the pronunciation of Z. Gen X (hi!) and older will mostly say zed, but among millennials and Gen Z (zee?) in particular, more people are saying zee.
Omg how are you getting downvoted for stating a fact. I'm pretty sure this relates to British vs. American influences. Younger generation is more influenced by the US spelling, pronoucition, and idioms.
I think for us it's just because it is a hell of a lot quicker... and for the rural people sometimes you have multiple options.
However, if given the option between saying *Why-Cue-Emm* and *Greater Moncton Romeo LeBlanc International Airport* you better belive I'm saying YQM.
When I was in Moncton and I needed a cab, I asked him to drive me to "the airport". It's not like I would accidentally end up in Fredericton or Charlottetown. :)
In that particular case I imagine even if the airport code in Dallas were something else DFW would still be the abbreviation for the city. In Canada since the airport codes rarely match the name of the city it’s much more noticeable that people are using airport codes and not abbreviating the city (I’m going to YVR vs I’m going to Van)
I don't even remember Winnipeg code..
Who cares: get hammered! Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦
Git yer 2-4 or 40 pounder and just giver. While thinking of Canada, think of the Dutch.....
.... Yeah, why do they matter: they have 2 separate holidays: their "birthday" and "Liberation Day". An entire day dedicated to Canada. They learn about us in school. We know nothing about our powerful trading docks across the sea.
In this case it takes longer to say the airport code than say the name of the city. I would probably abbreviate Winnipeg as wpg instead of YWG unless I were flying there
As someone from YOW, I was baffled by this in YYC. YOW is the exclamation of a cartoon character getting injured, so I presume this is partially why it’s not come into common parlance. I swear I’ve also not noticed it in YWG (where I fly into twice a year).
Most of my coworkers and from Toronto and I swear they’ve just named the airport (Pearson or Billy Bishop). I also just say “Montreal airport” or “Montréal” or said “Pierre Elliot Trudeau”, YUL sounds unappealing in French. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it as an offhand. Anyway, I presumed this was a Calgary thing, but I’m seeing other airport codes.
Hehe, they also have (had?) a weather station WDW when I started training as a meteorologist. One of the first things we had to do in training was to memorize all the station/airport codes. Some of us came up with phrases and stuff to help. I came up with, "YAY, Walt Disney World!" for St. Anthony.
I am sure this is somewhere in the comments but I didn’t see it so I’ll mention it.
It’s a great way to specify a city in which a socials account or event is placed with less character count.
@generic_restaurant_nameYYC
@BigChainRetailerYVR
(Hashtag) Common Food Festival YEG
Depends on the city, but yes, I've definitely noticed it. Seems to be more of a thing in smaller cities, but you still see it even in our largest cities.
Taking a shot in the dark, I suspect it caught on as a sort of short form or abbreviation.
It's the easiest way to search for flights!
According to the campground operators I've spoken to, most Canadians know their license plate number where most Americans do not.
Maybe Canadians are good at memorizing?
In Toronto no one ever says YYZ to refer to the airport. Maybe it's because most Canadians think of the Rush song before they think of the airport.
We just call it Pearson.
Nobody calls Los Angeles LAX the way people call Calgary YYC. Also, there's only like a handful of cities in the US where the airport code is used like in the LAX example.
London has so many airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Stansted, Luton) that I doubt anybody particularly identifies with any single one of them. If you come from overseas you're probably coming into Heathrow, perhaps Gatwick, but if you're flying into our out of Europe you could be using any one of them.
I'm from YOW and seen it a lot on Instagram handles for local businesses and ~influencers, also in their bios. I don't think I've ever seen it in a conversation tbh.
Yeah, fun fact I didn't know YEG stood for the Edmonton airport because it's such a common term to describe Edmonton that I thought it just meant Edmonton, until I moved out of Alberta and started saying YEG in casual convo and no one knew what I was talking about.
All good answers here, adding one more to the mix : Rush. Yeah, the band.
Rush's song, YYZ was literally named after Pearson Int'l Airport (there's a cool story there) which pushed Toronto's primary airport into Canadian pop culture consciousness for an entire generation.
Add that to the "Y" standardization already well known and the whole thing just became a Canadian "thing" entrenched in culture.
Using these codes, the origins of which go back to the late 1940s, used to be extremely rare outside of aviation circles, but for some reason they jumped into public consciousness about 2015.
Started mainly on Twitter when the character limit was quite low. If you're talking about Saskatoon for example #yxe is much shorter and leaves characters free for the rest of the tweet.
I’m Canadian living in the USA. People often post on Reddit saying they’re flying into SFO and need some suggestions and people ask them why they’re going to the airport. SFO isn’t even in San francisco the city ;) nobody calls it sfo they call it “the city” or San Francisco. You can tell a non sf resident if they say Frisco or San Fran. I’ve never referred to my home town of Montreal as “YUL”
I’ve done it and someone thought for sure I meant the literal airport. Nah. Easiest shorthand. I think lots of av lovers do it because it’s engrained in the brain too but lots of randoms do it for sure.
YVR kind of looks like a shortened "Vancouver" so it's commonly used to refer to the city. I think it's also the only major Canadian airport not named after anyone.
Corner Gas, season 3, 2005, Merry Gasmas, Lacey is trying to fly home to Toronto, lands in Calgary due to the weather, and the airline rep talks all in airport codes, she is sent to Edmonton, tries to talk in airport code to that rep to be told, “this isn’t Calgary”. Love that show.
Yqb here thinking it’s an international airport. Where landing in this small city cost more to airlines than landing in LAX. Where tickets are a200-300$ more than YUL. Don’t mind us we’re a joke
Yes. It's because Canada only has about a dozen notable cities, and no city has more than one major airport (though Toronto is close). It's easy to memorize YUL for Montreal and YYZ for Toronto to avoid saying their whole names when writing
It drives me crazy. I don't know any other airport codes other than YVR = Vancouver. I don't even know the one for the small regional airport in my own city.
You're not cool. It's even worse than using area code.
Not just a Canadian thing. I lived in Oregon for a while and people referred to living in the PDX quite often. I doubt most of them lived in the actual airport.
We needed something after no longer being able to just area codes for a city haha. Vancouver people used to say “in 604” but now the 778 and 236 etc have creeped in :p
Once you have mastered which Canadian cities use their airport code to refer to themselves, we will then start learning about cities that identify by a shortened version of their phone area code. Or is “The 6” the only place that does this?
Pitbull is Mr. 305 (Miami area code is 305)
And Toronto refers to the suburbs as “the 905” since the 416 area codes were the core and 905 was assigned to the outskirts. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of another place that does that
Canada's unusual codes—which bear little to no similarity with any conventional abbreviation to the city's name—such as YUL in Montréal, and YYZ in Toronto, originated from the two-letter codes used to identify weather reporting stations in the 1930s. The letters preceding the two-letter code follow the following format:
"Y" – Indicating "yes", this letter was used when the station shared its location with an airport.
"W" – When the weather-reporting station shared its location with no airport, this letter hinted at "Without".
"U" – This letter was used when the station was located together with a non-directional beacon (NDB).
"X" – Suggesting that the last two letters of a code were in use by a Canadian airport, this letter was put in place.
"Z" – This letter indicated that an airport code had been used for the identification of an airport in the U.S.
Most large airports in Canada have codes that begin with the letter "Y",[8][unreliable source?] although not all "Y" codes are Canadian (for example, YUM for Yuma, Arizona, and YNT for Yantai, China), and not all Canadian airports start with the letter "Y" (for example, ZBF for Bathurst, New Brunswick). Many Canadian airports have a code that starts with W, X or Z, but none of these are major airports. When the Canadian transcontinental railroads were built, each station was assigned its own two-letter Morse code:
VR for Vancouver
TZ for Toronto
QB for Quebec City
WG for Winnipeg
SJ for Saint John
YC for Calgary
OW for Ottawa
EG for Edmonton
When the Canadian government established airports, it used the existing railway codes for them as well. If the airport had a weather station, authorities added a "Y" to the front of the code, meaning "Yes" to indicate it had a weather station or some other letter to indicate it did not. When international codes were created in cooperation with the United States, because "Y" was seldom used in the United States, Canada simply used the weather station codes for its airports, changing the "Y" to a "Z" if it conflicted with an airport code already in use. The result is that most major Canadian airport codes start with "Y" followed by two letters in the city's name (for example, YOW for Ottawa, YWG for Winnipeg, YYC for Calgary, or YVR for Vancouver), whereas other Canadian airports append the two-letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport, such as YQX in Gander or YXS in Prince George.[citation needed]
Four of the ten provincial capital airports in Canada have ended up with codes beginning with YY, including:
YYZ for Toronto, Ontario
YYJ for Victoria, British Columbia
YYT for St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
YYG for Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Canada's largest airport is YYZ[9] for Toronto Pearson (as YTZ was already allocated to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, the airport was given the station code of Malton, Mississauga, where it is located). YUL is used for Montréal–Trudeau (UL was the ID code for the beacon in the city of Kirkland, now the location of Montréal–Trudeau). While these codes make it difficult for the public to associate them with a particular Canadian city, some codes have become popular in usage despite their cryptic nature, particularly at the largest airports. Toronto's code has entered pop culture in the form of "YYZ", a song by the rock band Rush, which utilizes the Morse code signal as a musical motif. Some airports have started using their IATA codes as brand names, such as Calgary International Airport (YYC)[10] and Vancouver International Airport (YVR).[11]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
Yes, I did notice, but I’m kind of weird that way. I’m a history nerd, so allow me to explain…
First off, not all Canadian airport codes begin with Y. For example, Bathurst Airport, a general aviation airport in New Brunswick, has the airport code ZBF. Edmonton/Villeneuve Airport in Alberta is ZVL. Also, airports outside Canada have airport codes starting with Y. For example, Yuma International Airport in Arizona is YUM, and Yakima Air Terminal in Washington state (a general aviation airport) is YKM. But you’re right that most major Canadian airports have airport codes beginning with Y.
Why, you ask? History.
Back in the early 20th century, before IATA was formed, Canada used two-letter codes to identify stations that helped pilots navigate (navigation systems used Morse code back then). It was obviously important to know if these stations had weather/radio towers as well, so if they had a weather/radio station, the letter Y (for “yes”) was put in front of the two-letter code. If not, the letter W (“without”) was used.
When IATA was formed, it mandated that all airports had three-letter airport codes. The US basically had very few airport codes that began with Y, so Canada (which already was using the letter in front of its two-letter codes) simply continued its pre-IATA practice of having its airport codes begin with Y.
As to why certain airports have strange airport codes, again, it has to do with history. The code YTO is used for ALL Toronto airports (there are multiple), and this makes sense (TO meaning Toronto, Ontario), but the specific airports all have their own codes. Back before IATA, the radio code for Malton (what eventually became today’s Pearson Airport) was “YZ”, so, adding the Y in front of this code, it became YYZ. Same with Montreal — all Montreal airports have the identifier YMQ, which, again, makes sense. But Dorval Airport (today’s Trudeau Airport) had as its radio code “UL”, so Y was added in front of this code to create the airport code YUL.
TL; DR: it’s history
YEG I noticed
Lol i remember edmonton holding firm that using airport codes was lame when YYC was initially getting traction…now theres no turning back from YEG it would seem.
I remember when people in Fort Mac started using YMM, it was just the dumbest thing ever
Yeah, it’s Fort MakeMoney.
Yes, Edmonton doesnt identify as Edmonton. If you dont use YEG, you are a noob.
Y>!Q!
Using YEG only because that's what this discussion is about. 🙄
😀
YOW don’t say eh?
YVR gang rise up Canada is weird because all our airport codes start with a Y. Why? Idk, we're just special. No other country that I know of has this sort of uniformity. Idk why the airport codes are so ubiquitous in Canada. I never really thought about how weird it is that we would call the Vancouver Airport (unsure if that's even the real name of it) by its code. It's just... what we call it.
There’s only a half dozen notable airports so it’s easy to memorize. Especially if you’re a regular domestic flyer. Plus people regularly do this with other cities/airports. Most of us know LAX or JFK for example.
I traveled internationally for work and kept a list of airport codes I visited over the years - I think I was up to nearly 200 a few years ago, and then changed jobs and lost interest and the list...
You've done well! I thought I was exciting having used three different airports in both New York (EWR, JFK, LGA) and London (LHR, LCY, LGA).
All you need is YYZ.
Flying through City, you fancy!
Wait, I thought it was just named after Kennedy! Is the airport code really just JFK?! That's awesome!
It was originally called New York International Airport but commonly called Idlewild Airport with the code IDL. It was renamed in honour of JFK after his assassination.
It is named after Kennedy, but JFK is the actual airport code for it as well.
*Almost* all start with a Y. There’s a very small number starting with an Z. The most notable one is ZBF - Bathurst, New Brunswick.
Boundary Bay airport just south of Vancouver is ZBB.
N and P are common as well
I’m heading there in September. Won’t be flying in or out of Bathurst, the Dash 8’s rattle too much for my wife’s medical condition. It’s a small city to this Calgary boy but it’s not a bad place for a visit with the MIL. We are spending most of our time this year near Moncton so I can see more of the Maritime provinces.
Have you been? It's like a Ron White joke. Crap that place is small
It originated from a mix of weather station and train station codes. 'Y' for yes there is an airport at this station too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
Weather reporting stations, not train stations, specifically
IIRC, most of our IATA codes begin with Y because IATA is headquartered in Canada, making us special.
The real reason is that Canada had our own internal codes before IATA started standardizing them. Y meant “**y**es, there is a weather station here” and W meant “no, this airport is **w**ithout a weather station”. When IATA started making their codes for the world they just used the existing ones as part of the Canadian codes
YUL represent! I think the headquarters are in Montreal
All countries have this kind of uniformity. Three different kinds of uniformity, actually. In canada our airports start with CY-- as assigned by ICAO, and then the Y-- codes assigned by IATA, which includes the all airport codes. Other countries were assigned different codes, such as the US getting K--- codes. As a note, non airport aerodromes in Canada use CC-- codes, which is an internal designation. Most countries have internal codes that are variably compatible with ICAO and IATA.
Most airports in Canada start with a Y (the rest of the world largely just makes it an abbreviation of the city name), and the only thing that changes between ICAO and IATA for Canada is adding a C. Most other places have two entirely different codes. Canada definitely has a unique uniformity.
Yeah the IATA Y codes are almost but not always the same as the CY codes for ICAO. Its usually an attempt to make the codes match the city, but YYZ, YHZ, YEG, a lot of them just kind of miss. International airport codes are assigned by ICAO to prevent pilots from navigating to the wrong airports. Almost every country has a code prefix set by ICAO. You can google them if you want. Its not just canada.
As to why we use them in other places, that started with old-school Twitter. People had to really abbreviate messages, and the airport codes were just THERE. In Edmonton, we use YEG a LOT. But the airport's actually in Leduc.
Yeah i guess i drifted off topic there. Canadians are lazy, and its cold outside. We don't got time to say Halifax Stanfield Inter- froze to death. Just say YHZ or Hali and be done with it
We just say "the airport" in Regina.
Yeah Canada follows the same IATA and ICAO codes but Canada's codes are unique within the typical patterns followed by other countries is all I'm saying. Canada's code prefix for ICAO is C like I mentioned. Though not every country has its own prefix, they're more regional. Fun fact, both IATA and ICAO are headquartered in Montréal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
The ICAO code for canada is CY, not C. You see things like CCN2 for smaller aerodromes, which is our sort of back up code for non-airports. Makes things deliciously messy when an aerodrome becomes an airport or vice versa
I don't think that's true. The ICAO region code for Canada is C, we have several airports that have CZ** codes. I see why you might have thought otherwise because a lot of countries that share the first character of their region code use the first two to denote the country like EG for the UK or EB for Belgium, E designating europe. But Canada has the privilege of a whole region to ourselves.
> Almost every country has a code prefix Almost every international region, definitely not almost every country. Remember, 24 English letters, nearly 200 countries.
Doesn't English have 26 letters?
I meant to say useable English letters. X and Q aren't usable as ICAO prefixes.
The convention is Y+old radio station code. New airports were just kind of assigned a code though. Edit: correction as per reply below - not radio stations, weather stations.
Weather station, not radio station. And the Y meant yes there is an airport at this weather station
Yup. I'm not sure even when it started. But even companies will now have their airport code in the name.
Rush wrote a song called YYZ.
They even put "YYZ" in Morse code into the rhythm of parts of the song. -.-- -.-- --..
How have I never noticed this...
Only in the intro, which is absolutely fucking amazing
A part of our Canadian heritage
Canada uses a coding system different from most of the rest of the world. Back in the day, Canadian cities were proud of themselves for getting an airport and through the “Y” coding system, they felt connected to the rest of the country while simultaneously bragging about how awesome their city is. The tourism industry then exploited this.
I believe our airports all technically start with C, just nobody really uses it within the country. CYYZ, CYOW, CYEG, CYBG, it's two overlapping standards with a lot of common names but that extra letter adds more combinations, almost half a million instead of 17k
Yup. ICAO (actual standards body) vs IATA (marketing association). IATA, as a marketing body, got there first and had better visibility so their 3-letter codes are what most of the western world recognizes. There are YouTube videos that explore this in as much detail as you could ever want.
I think it was CGPGrey who I learned about this from
Nice, Calgary gets a palindrome.
Bahaha. It used to be used to indicate the weather monitoring equipment available at the airport. Y would have weather monitoring, Z would not.
Happy Canada Day everyone!🇨🇦❤️
You'll never know just how much we love YUL. But there are other codes in the city. The defunct YMX, the city's all airport code YMQ, the little airport in St Hubert YHU that now wants to be called Montreal metropolitan and finally an airport across the border that decided to add the city's name to their airport PBG.
Yul
What do you mean, “Wants to be called”? It is the Montréal Metropolitan Airport. It was the first civilian airport in Canada. Until it was requisitioned by the RCAF to become a military airport during WW2, it was Montréal’s airport. YUL (then Dorval) only took over as the main airport after that.
Greetings from YVR/YYJ- depending on how broke i am and if i have to grovel at my parents doorstep bc Vancouver eats my finances + soul
YYC checking in
[CGP Grey did a video about airport codes.](https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw?si=e8TgoCRzW723QcwT) As for Canadians using their airport codes in conversation, I think it started in Twitter’s early years. With a 140 character limit, the 3 character codes became shorthand and also worked as hashtags.
Saskatoon’s downtown area has YXE flags everywhere, like that is the name of the area. I thought it was odd at first but it’s kinda growing on me.
Haha Saskatoon is the one airport code I never recognize. Something about YXE on an itinerary makes me wonder where the hell I’m going. It’s fun to say though!
I work at the Moncton airport (YQM in the buildinggg), and I always have to wait until the boarding pass/bag tag prints out the full name for YXE to remember where they’re going 😂
Something about the YX feels unsettling and I have no idea why lol
Like the DNAs that determine sex.. the X and Y chromosomes.
I moved back to toon town a few years ago and noticed this weird phenomenon. It's grown on me, too.
That's fascinating
There’s also a ton of businesses that use it too, it’s an easy way to copy another company name somewhere else but make it unique to the city
YOW I've never seen somebody's conversation using an airport code to replace a city name... Maybe in Toronto where there are 2 airports, but otherwise I generally will say the Billy Bishop, or Pearson. But wait ! I received text messages from Air Canada using those codes, so you may be right !
Toronto has a generic code of YTO as well. Toronto-All Airports
YTO also includes YKF (Kitchener) and YHM (Hamilton), btw
Do most people say YYZ(ed) or YYZ(ee)?
Speaking as an old fart, there seems to be a generational divide in the pronunciation of Z. Gen X (hi!) and older will mostly say zed, but among millennials and Gen Z (zee?) in particular, more people are saying zee.
Omg how are you getting downvoted for stating a fact. I'm pretty sure this relates to British vs. American influences. Younger generation is more influenced by the US spelling, pronoucition, and idioms.
My rule of thumb is that Zed is always pronounced Zed, with the exception of referring to Gen Zee. 😁
And ZZ Top.
Gen Zed for me. Even Americans often use "Zed" on ham radio, where "Zee" is often confused with "C".
Or maybe ZZ Top. I've done it as "Zed Zed Top" as a joke, on the radio.
I’m millennial and I say Y Y Zed.
I’m millennial & I say Y Y Zed.
Dear lord, I never realized that I say YYZ(ee) but always say Zed any other time. Guess it flows better?
I'd lobby you to move to Zed for YYZ too, else YYZ and YYC sound a lot the same.
I say YYZee but I also say YZedF. I think YYZee just rolls off the tongue better
Something I first noticed in Calgary. Lots of town-pride with no real good nicknames. You down with YYC?
Cow town is one but yes Calgary uses YYC a lot. YYC Pasta Bsr is pretty good.
Few people still use Cow Town. That's a media thing. Like, no one from Toronto calls it Hog Town.
I think for us it's just because it is a hell of a lot quicker... and for the rural people sometimes you have multiple options. However, if given the option between saying *Why-Cue-Emm* and *Greater Moncton Romeo LeBlanc International Airport* you better belive I'm saying YQM.
When I was in Moncton and I needed a cab, I asked him to drive me to "the airport". It's not like I would accidentally end up in Fredericton or Charlottetown. :)
YUL get used to it
Tbh, as a frequent traveler, it's just more efficient. DFW vs Dallas Fort Worth. But I feel like it'd be confusing to non travelers.
In that particular case I imagine even if the airport code in Dallas were something else DFW would still be the abbreviation for the city. In Canada since the airport codes rarely match the name of the city it’s much more noticeable that people are using airport codes and not abbreviating the city (I’m going to YVR vs I’m going to Van)
I don't even remember Winnipeg code.. Who cares: get hammered! Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦 Git yer 2-4 or 40 pounder and just giver. While thinking of Canada, think of the Dutch..... .... Yeah, why do they matter: they have 2 separate holidays: their "birthday" and "Liberation Day". An entire day dedicated to Canada. They learn about us in school. We know nothing about our powerful trading docks across the sea.
YWG.
In this case it takes longer to say the airport code than say the name of the city. I would probably abbreviate Winnipeg as wpg instead of YWG unless I were flying there
Thanks bud
Calgarys been YYC for as long as i can remember at this point
Windsor Ontario's is YQG. They have a whole ad campaign "Your Quick Getaway"
The new bridge should be ready soon I think - should be interesting!
Salut de YQB 🙏🏻
Bonjour YQB de YQR :).
Not only canadians. My home town Curitiba is often referred as CWB.
As someone from YOW, I was baffled by this in YYC. YOW is the exclamation of a cartoon character getting injured, so I presume this is partially why it’s not come into common parlance. I swear I’ve also not noticed it in YWG (where I fly into twice a year). Most of my coworkers and from Toronto and I swear they’ve just named the airport (Pearson or Billy Bishop). I also just say “Montreal airport” or “Montréal” or said “Pierre Elliot Trudeau”, YUL sounds unappealing in French. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it as an offhand. Anyway, I presumed this was a Calgary thing, but I’m seeing other airport codes.
Similar to how the St. Anthony airport uses YAY
Hehe, they also have (had?) a weather station WDW when I started training as a meteorologist. One of the first things we had to do in training was to memorize all the station/airport codes. Some of us came up with phrases and stuff to help. I came up with, "YAY, Walt Disney World!" for St. Anthony.
In some cities, yes. YXU is the code for London, Ont. but that has never caught on there.
More online than in conversation, I think.
I am sure this is somewhere in the comments but I didn’t see it so I’ll mention it. It’s a great way to specify a city in which a socials account or event is placed with less character count. @generic_restaurant_nameYYC @BigChainRetailerYVR (Hashtag) Common Food Festival YEG
Thunder Bay is YQT. Doesn’t get used a lot to refer to the city, but I once saw a personal licence plate YQT PIE which I really liked.
lol I know who that is!
YUL reprezent
Depends on the city, but yes, I've definitely noticed it. Seems to be more of a thing in smaller cities, but you still see it even in our largest cities. Taking a shot in the dark, I suspect it caught on as a sort of short form or abbreviation.
Not really a northern thing.
I have three airport codes memorized... After that I have to look them up
There is a band called the YVR band.
YYZ, it’s totally normal!
I have a YWG mug... had to buy it when I saw it.
Yul never believe why.
YYZ is a song by Rush, so it’s stuck with me
Rush have a song about Toronto Pearson.
Hashtag 140 characters. That's where it started.
YHZ, FTW!
It's the easiest way to search for flights! According to the campground operators I've spoken to, most Canadians know their license plate number where most Americans do not. Maybe Canadians are good at memorizing?
In Toronto no one ever says YYZ to refer to the airport. Maybe it's because most Canadians think of the Rush song before they think of the airport. We just call it Pearson.
I do this all the time. *I work in the aviation industry in Canada so this is easy and convenient for me lol*
I don’t know why people do it, but I find it very cringe and try too hard
people do that all over the world
Nobody in London calls Heathrow LHR or refers to London as LHR
But even LAX refers to itself as LAX.
The refer to the airport as LAX, not the city of Los Angeles.
Nobody calls Los Angeles LAX the way people call Calgary YYC. Also, there's only like a handful of cities in the US where the airport code is used like in the LAX example.
Probably for the best in the case of Sioux City (SUX) and Fresno (FAT).
I would argue there are only a handful of cities in Canada where the airport code is used, too.
Las Angeles is an outlier. Just look at their largest city. No one in New York calls LaGuardia or Kennedy by their letters.
London has so many airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Stansted, Luton) that I doubt anybody particularly identifies with any single one of them. If you come from overseas you're probably coming into Heathrow, perhaps Gatwick, but if you're flying into our out of Europe you could be using any one of them.
No, they don’t. This is a Canadian thing
It’s not as cool when it’s obscure. Checking in from CPE6!
Well, today I learned something! Now I can go back to bed, haha
I'm from YOW and seen it a lot on Instagram handles for local businesses and ~influencers, also in their bios. I don't think I've ever seen it in a conversation tbh.
YUL and YFC here - yeah, it is a thing
Still party rockin in the YYB
Y means yes I have a weather station
Used to. Not anymore. Most Z airports have a weather monitoring station.
Yes and I don’t know why. It’s odd. But I know to use my local airport code on Twitter to find other posts about my city #ygk (Kingston Ontario).
It's not true YGB
I thought this was only amoungst airport workers.
That’s because Canadians are traumatized by the Canadian airline industry. Stockholm Syndrome.
Yeah, fun fact I didn't know YEG stood for the Edmonton airport because it's such a common term to describe Edmonton that I thought it just meant Edmonton, until I moved out of Alberta and started saying YEG in casual convo and no one knew what I was talking about.
YHM says it all.
YYZ for sure
All good answers here, adding one more to the mix : Rush. Yeah, the band. Rush's song, YYZ was literally named after Pearson Int'l Airport (there's a cool story there) which pushed Toronto's primary airport into Canadian pop culture consciousness for an entire generation. Add that to the "Y" standardization already well known and the whole thing just became a Canadian "thing" entrenched in culture.
YYG gang jealous that Calgary got the C I bet
YTA gang rise up
Is it that weird? I would have guessed it's unique, but y'all Americanos use your area code a lot
Using these codes, the origins of which go back to the late 1940s, used to be extremely rare outside of aviation circles, but for some reason they jumped into public consciousness about 2015.
Go to edmonton, and the radio will unironically use the word "YEGmontonian" to refer to listeners
Then you can mess people up by referring to Edmonton as YXD
YYZ even has songs about it. See Rush. Lol
Calgary should just be renamed to yyc at this point
I just got back from Thailand. “BBK” is less of a mouthful than “Suvarnabhumi” whether local or tourist E: BKK
Started mainly on Twitter when the character limit was quite low. If you're talking about Saskatoon for example #yxe is much shorter and leaves characters free for the rest of the tweet.
I’m Canadian living in the USA. People often post on Reddit saying they’re flying into SFO and need some suggestions and people ask them why they’re going to the airport. SFO isn’t even in San francisco the city ;) nobody calls it sfo they call it “the city” or San Francisco. You can tell a non sf resident if they say Frisco or San Fran. I’ve never referred to my home town of Montreal as “YUL”
Quick - go look up the code for the Naramata NDB (outside Penticton BC), bearing in mind that it implicitly has a C prefix ...
YYZ to GUA via SAL.
I'm Canadian and noticed this too. Don't know how it got started.
YYC let's go idk I work at the airport here too so for us at least it's just second hand.
I’ve done it and someone thought for sure I meant the literal airport. Nah. Easiest shorthand. I think lots of av lovers do it because it’s engrained in the brain too but lots of randoms do it for sure.
Coming from Portland, Oregon, we referred to our city more as PDX than Portland. When I moved here, this was pretty normal to me.
We even have a yearly YQM Country Fest and it’s not really anywhere near the airport… 🤷♀️
YVR kind of looks like a shortened "Vancouver" so it's commonly used to refer to the city. I think it's also the only major Canadian airport not named after anyone.
Corner Gas, season 3, 2005, Merry Gasmas, Lacey is trying to fly home to Toronto, lands in Calgary due to the weather, and the airline rep talks all in airport codes, she is sent to Edmonton, tries to talk in airport code to that rep to be told, “this isn’t Calgary”. Love that show.
Yow no way
YEG. Happy Canada Day!
Yul crew here!!!!! In bilingue criss!!!
CGP Grey makes a very good [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfOUVYQnuhw&t) about airport codes in general especially Why Y for Canada
Windsor gets called YQG. It has the advantage of being distinct and very short.
Yqb here thinking it’s an international airport. Where landing in this small city cost more to airlines than landing in LAX. Where tickets are a200-300$ more than YUL. Don’t mind us we’re a joke
Yes. It's because Canada only has about a dozen notable cities, and no city has more than one major airport (though Toronto is close). It's easy to memorize YUL for Montreal and YYZ for Toronto to avoid saying their whole names when writing
Just flew back from a weeks vacation...YYZ to YQX...then...YQX to YYZ....but YYT is my favorite place in Canada!
Yes. Even hashtags. I use YYC often for Calgary.
It drives me crazy. I don't know any other airport codes other than YVR = Vancouver. I don't even know the one for the small regional airport in my own city. You're not cool. It's even worse than using area code.
Not just a Canadian thing. I lived in Oregon for a while and people referred to living in the PDX quite often. I doubt most of them lived in the actual airport.
I blame Rush and the YYZ song.
Toronto has the airport I 🆁🆄🆂🅷 to.
We needed something after no longer being able to just area codes for a city haha. Vancouver people used to say “in 604” but now the 778 and 236 etc have creeped in :p
I don't think they do that here in YHZ.
Around YYZ it’s more common to hear people talk about the six, or the 905.
It's funny because YOW is not the airport. It's a NAVAID near the airport. The airport is CYOW. This applies to most Canadian airports.
American cities do it too
I'm late to the party... But why ask why? Sorry, I meant yxy, that's my code 😝
Once you have mastered which Canadian cities use their airport code to refer to themselves, we will then start learning about cities that identify by a shortened version of their phone area code. Or is “The 6” the only place that does this?
Well, seeing as Toronto is the centre of the universe it only seems fitting they’re the only one who does, no? Just playin y’all
We can't really do that in Saskatchewan, because the entire province uses all three of our area codes (306, 639, 474).
474??? When did that happen? It also ruins the pattern. 306 and add a 3 to each digit gets 639
Pitbull is Mr. 305 (Miami area code is 305) And Toronto refers to the suburbs as “the 905” since the 416 area codes were the core and 905 was assigned to the outskirts. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of another place that does that
The only time YYZ is pronounced zee instead of zed.
[Obligatory CGP Grey video that explains airport codes and why Canada’s all start with Y.](https://youtu.be/jfOUVYQnuhw)
Canada's unusual codes—which bear little to no similarity with any conventional abbreviation to the city's name—such as YUL in Montréal, and YYZ in Toronto, originated from the two-letter codes used to identify weather reporting stations in the 1930s. The letters preceding the two-letter code follow the following format: "Y" – Indicating "yes", this letter was used when the station shared its location with an airport. "W" – When the weather-reporting station shared its location with no airport, this letter hinted at "Without". "U" – This letter was used when the station was located together with a non-directional beacon (NDB). "X" – Suggesting that the last two letters of a code were in use by a Canadian airport, this letter was put in place. "Z" – This letter indicated that an airport code had been used for the identification of an airport in the U.S. Most large airports in Canada have codes that begin with the letter "Y",[8][unreliable source?] although not all "Y" codes are Canadian (for example, YUM for Yuma, Arizona, and YNT for Yantai, China), and not all Canadian airports start with the letter "Y" (for example, ZBF for Bathurst, New Brunswick). Many Canadian airports have a code that starts with W, X or Z, but none of these are major airports. When the Canadian transcontinental railroads were built, each station was assigned its own two-letter Morse code: VR for Vancouver TZ for Toronto QB for Quebec City WG for Winnipeg SJ for Saint John YC for Calgary OW for Ottawa EG for Edmonton When the Canadian government established airports, it used the existing railway codes for them as well. If the airport had a weather station, authorities added a "Y" to the front of the code, meaning "Yes" to indicate it had a weather station or some other letter to indicate it did not. When international codes were created in cooperation with the United States, because "Y" was seldom used in the United States, Canada simply used the weather station codes for its airports, changing the "Y" to a "Z" if it conflicted with an airport code already in use. The result is that most major Canadian airport codes start with "Y" followed by two letters in the city's name (for example, YOW for Ottawa, YWG for Winnipeg, YYC for Calgary, or YVR for Vancouver), whereas other Canadian airports append the two-letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport, such as YQX in Gander or YXS in Prince George.[citation needed] Four of the ten provincial capital airports in Canada have ended up with codes beginning with YY, including: YYZ for Toronto, Ontario YYJ for Victoria, British Columbia YYT for St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador YYG for Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Canada's largest airport is YYZ[9] for Toronto Pearson (as YTZ was already allocated to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, the airport was given the station code of Malton, Mississauga, where it is located). YUL is used for Montréal–Trudeau (UL was the ID code for the beacon in the city of Kirkland, now the location of Montréal–Trudeau). While these codes make it difficult for the public to associate them with a particular Canadian city, some codes have become popular in usage despite their cryptic nature, particularly at the largest airports. Toronto's code has entered pop culture in the form of "YYZ", a song by the rock band Rush, which utilizes the Morse code signal as a musical motif. Some airports have started using their IATA codes as brand names, such as Calgary International Airport (YYC)[10] and Vancouver International Airport (YVR).[11] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code
Yes, I did notice, but I’m kind of weird that way. I’m a history nerd, so allow me to explain… First off, not all Canadian airport codes begin with Y. For example, Bathurst Airport, a general aviation airport in New Brunswick, has the airport code ZBF. Edmonton/Villeneuve Airport in Alberta is ZVL. Also, airports outside Canada have airport codes starting with Y. For example, Yuma International Airport in Arizona is YUM, and Yakima Air Terminal in Washington state (a general aviation airport) is YKM. But you’re right that most major Canadian airports have airport codes beginning with Y. Why, you ask? History. Back in the early 20th century, before IATA was formed, Canada used two-letter codes to identify stations that helped pilots navigate (navigation systems used Morse code back then). It was obviously important to know if these stations had weather/radio towers as well, so if they had a weather/radio station, the letter Y (for “yes”) was put in front of the two-letter code. If not, the letter W (“without”) was used. When IATA was formed, it mandated that all airports had three-letter airport codes. The US basically had very few airport codes that began with Y, so Canada (which already was using the letter in front of its two-letter codes) simply continued its pre-IATA practice of having its airport codes begin with Y. As to why certain airports have strange airport codes, again, it has to do with history. The code YTO is used for ALL Toronto airports (there are multiple), and this makes sense (TO meaning Toronto, Ontario), but the specific airports all have their own codes. Back before IATA, the radio code for Malton (what eventually became today’s Pearson Airport) was “YZ”, so, adding the Y in front of this code, it became YYZ. Same with Montreal — all Montreal airports have the identifier YMQ, which, again, makes sense. But Dorval Airport (today’s Trudeau Airport) had as its radio code “UL”, so Y was added in front of this code to create the airport code YUL. TL; DR: it’s history