IATA Airport (extended list)

IATA airport code: the 3-letter code on every boarding pass

An IATA airport code is the three-letter identifier assigned by the International Air Transport Association to airports worldwide — GRU for São Paulo–Guarulhos, JFK for New York, LHR for London Heathrow. It's the code printed on your luggage tag and boarding pass and used in fares, schedules and bookings. This tool checks the 3-letter format and looks the code up against a list of ~120 major airports.

IATA codes are a flat namespace of ~17,500 codes with no internal structure — they don't encode country or region, so you cannot infer location from the letters. Many are mnemonic (MIA Miami) but plenty are historical accidents (ORD Chicago O'Hare, from "Orchard Field").

IATA vs ICAO codes

• IATA (3 letters): commercial — tickets, baggage, booking systems. GRU.
• ICAO (4 letters): operational — flight plans, ATC. The same airport is SBGR in ICAO, where the first letter(s) do encode region (SB = Brazil).
• Don't mix them: a 3-letter code is IATA; a 4-letter code is ICAO. Systems expect one or the other.

Common pitfalls

• Airport ≠ city code: NYC is the city code grouping JFK/LGA/EWR; JFK is one airport. Booking engines treat them differently.
• No geographic meaning: never parse the letters for country — use a lookup table.
• Codes get reassigned: when airports close, codes can later be reused elsewhere.
• Format ≠ exists: any 3 uppercase letters pass the regex; only a database confirms a real airport.

FAQ

Why is Chicago O'Hare "ORD"? The airport was built on Orchard Field; the code outlived the name. Many codes are similar historical leftovers.

Can two airports share a code? Not at the same time — IATA codes are unique among active airports, though retired codes may be recycled years later.

Is this the same as the airline code? No — airlines have their own 2-character IATA codes (e.g. LA LATAM); this tool is about airports.