3 letter Airport Codes : The Ultimate Guide ( 2024 )
SZX-DME , What’s that mean ?
Let’s come straight to the point of today’s topic : the 3 letter airport codes.
If you travel a lot by air, you may be familar with some airports and abbreviations, like LAX stands for Los Angeles, and LHR is London Heathrow airport.
How is that ? And why you show know it ? Is it related to air shipping ?
With these questions, let’s drive right in.
What are the 3 letter airport codes ?
IATA search location systemThe world airport codes are abbreviated to “three letter location code“, which is formulated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
IATA supports aviation with global standards for airline safety, security, efficiency and sustainability.
And to do achieve that goal, IATA has developed a unified code for countries, cities, airports and airlines in the world.
In IATA code system, normally three letters are used to represent a airport name.
So that’s how “3 letter airport codes” or “three letter location code” comes.
Where can 3 letter airport codes be used ?
air cargo shipping label
As a very important part of international shipping abbreviation,
the 3 letter code is widely used in international air transport since it is a awesome way to speed up the whole shipping process.
Cargo Labels
You can find cargo label with three letter airport codes put on the every box.
This job is requested by airline and carried out by forwarder.
The idea is to facilitate the airport cargo station operators to sort and handle the cargo.
The bar code can be scanned and airway bill information uploaded to airline’s system when booking.
Later you can find the corresponding same cargo information when tracking status online.
Airway Bills
Airport codes are also listed on AWB, the most important documentation for air shipping.
See the real-time air waybill sample : HKG or DME are given to express the POL ( Hongkong ) and POD ( Moscow )
Surely, the POL and POD airport code are the same as the cargo labels as above.
Othersise, cargo is wrongly shipped.
Status Tracking
For most airline compaines, they provide both full airport name /city name and corresponding 3 letter airport codes in their query system.
Next time, when you search the flight status online,
Instead of input a long city name , you can just input its code if you remember.
For example,
when you wrongly spell or forget how to spell “San Francisco”,you can just input ” SFO”.
Pretty cool, isn’t it ?
List of of freight airport codes
According to the search locations code data from IATA, there are more than 9088 codes.
So you need to learn all ? Definitely Not.
There are 3 reasons :
1.Airports can be divided into military airport, civil airport and even private airport based on the purpose. Most of which you need to consider is civil airport.
2.For international trade importers, usually you only need to care about the major freight customs airport which standard for the “International Airport” with customs and other regulatory agencies. You don’t need to care minor airports, which means service is unavailable. No routes, No flights.
3.Those three letter location codes include city codes and airport codes. Some are the same, and some cities don’t have airports.
So in short, only less than 3 hundred airports common are common used in international shipping.
Unlike IATA comprehensive location codes system for world airports codes and city codes, we focus on international air shipping major freight Customs airports.
MOW is the code of Moscow city.
If you are going to travel, check the tickets of on the website of booking tickets. You can find that there are four international airports SVO, BKA, DME and VKO in the city.
But if you are going to send the goods by air , MOW can’t be used.
Normally we use DME or SVO1/ SVO2 for air shipments to Moscow.
More professional, more accurate. Right ?
What’s the meaning of airport codes ?
Besides improving the air shipping operation efficiency, the airport code will be used to determine the airport for discharge and effect the air shipping costs and Customs clearance.
Despite airport codes are a convenient shipping tool, it can be a trouble for some importers to remember or learn.
It seems it is optional, not mandatory.
You may ask why must we use airport codes for online information or documentation? Why not just use city name only ?
This is because some cities have different Customs airports. And all those airports can be used for interational air freight.
We still take Moscow as the example.
As we already know there are 3 freight airports ( DME, SVO1, SVO2 ) for air shipments to Moscow, if we don’t use the airport code, then how to know which airport cargo will be arrive at?
How serious is it to get the goods to the wrong airport?
Different airlines park at different airports, while different terminals mean different customs officers and different demand level of air shipping documentation.
The 3 letter code is unique. A 3 letter code represents an airport only.
If you make a mistake at the discharge airport ( choose a wrong airport code ) , the goods may not be cleared, huge costs can be incurred. Including :
a huge amount of warehousing charge in the destination airport.
The cost of destroying the goods or handling the return of the cargo.
Don’t think that the goods will not be abandoned.
The airline has the right to recover the additional cost of warehouse rent, destruction from the consignor.
Therefore, a professional importer will need to check and confirm which airport need to go before make the booking.
The good news is most cities have only one freight airport.
Only few cities have multiple airports which need to be pay attention to.
Those cities with different air freight routes are :
Moscow, Russia : DME, SVO1, SVO2
Sao Paulo, Brazil : GRU, VCP
Dubai, UAE : DXB, DWC
Istanbul, Turkey: IST, ISL ( New )
Berlin: TXL, BER
CONCLUSION
Airport codes play a vital part in air freight forwarding industries,
Learning the airport or city abbreviation will help a lot to speed up the instant quote and order management.
If you plan to ship from China, now or in the future, please contact me, and I will provide you with a solution subsequently.
