How to Look Up Airport Codes

Last Updated: October 21, 2021

While it's not an everyday task that you need to know a certain airport code, you may end up having to research an airport's code when booking an airline flight to a particular airport. This article can help extract the information that can give you details on how to obtain the codes you'll need.

Steps

1
Research which airport you are looking for the code for.
2
Call the airport. Most airports will answer the question of "What is your three-lettered airport code?" with the code.

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3
Call some of the airlines that fly into that particular airport. Most of the major airlines will be able to find out what the code is to the airport, provided that you tell them the airport's exact name, city and state.
4
Contact a travel agent. Whether the travel agent is the one that you are using to fly or not, each one can answer your question.
5
Look at the airline ticket. All airlines are mandated to place the airport name and airport code on the ticket.
6
Research it on the Internet. While some sites are better than others, most search engines will be able to answer this question. Type the complete airport name along with a comma and space and the words "airport code".
7
Try other websites devoted to answering your code-looking question. Once you are signed into FlightAware, you can grab the information for any airport round the world. Go to their Browse Airports page and click the State the airport would be in.
- Look down the column under "FAA code". While the Major Airports section is a "most commonly asked for section", there are other airports listed underneath (in All Airports) that contain other popular codes.
8
Try alternate forms of websites. Use mobile apps. Between the ForeFlight app (on iOS) and the FlightAware app on Android, or just about a few apps on an Amazon Kindle Fire, you'll never be without an answer to the code lettered question.