Changes in airport identifiers

Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the
second in 1996. I did a decode on 49J and it shows as a non-existent
identifier. HXD is current for Hilton Head. I found a few sites that
say the ID changed with airline service was added, but I've not found
any site that contains such history in general.

Matt

It is most likely due to a a weather station being installed at the
airport. I believe ICAO does not allow numbers in airport codes.


Matt Whiting wrote:
Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the
second in 1996. I did a decode on 49J and it shows as a non-existent
identifier. HXD is current for Hilton Head. I found a few sites that
say the ID changed with airline service was added, but I've not found
any site that contains such history in general.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the
second in 1996. I did a decode on 49J and it shows as a non-existent
identifier. HXD is current for Hilton Head. I found a few sites that
say the ID changed with airline service was added, but I've not found
any site that contains such history in general.

Happens quiet frequently. I think its when AWOS is added.

-Robert

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

It is most likely due to a a weather station being installed at the
airport. I believe ICAO does not allow numbers in airport codes.

Interesting. I just noticed that another airport I flew into years ago
has disappeared (well the ID disappeared). 7I7 no longer exists. I'm
finding all sorts of neat things as I enter my old logbook into logshare!

Matt

In a previous article, Matt Whiting said:
Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the

As others have already mentioned, this is due to the need for weather
reporting stations to have ICAO-compatible identifiers. The ICAO codes
are 4 letters long, and start with a country code, and cannot have
non-alphabetic characters in them (ie. no numbers). It is FAA practice to
give airports in the continental US an FAA code that is just the ICAO code
with the country prefix (K) stropped off if they have an ICAO code, so
when an airport that has an FAA identifier that has digits in it gets
weather, it changes identifier to match its new ICAO code.

Unfortunately, when you're talking about FAA airports outside of the lower
48, like Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or other US protectorates, the
mapping between FAA code and ICAO code is much less easy. I've never
found a good source of mappings between ICAO and FAA codes except in the
DAFIF file, and that's gone the way of the Dodo bird.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
....if you squeeze a MS product into a small enough memory footprint there may
not be sufficient space for it to fall over, thus giving the impression it's
reliable. -- Geoff Lane

Some time ago one of the local airports here changed its ID from Q99
to E16. Anyone has any clue as to why would such a change occur? The
airport has no weather station, the new ID also has digits in it. ...

Are there any rules or guidelines out there specifying how to assign
IDs to airports?

Happy Holidays

- Tom

On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:41:43 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

In a previous article, Matt Whiting said:
Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the

As others have already mentioned, this is due to the need for weather
reporting stations to have ICAO-compatible identifiers. The ICAO codes
are 4 letters long, and start with a country code, and cannot have
non-alphabetic characters in them (ie. no numbers). It is FAA practice to
give airports in the continental US an FAA code that is just the ICAO code
with the country prefix (K) stropped off if they have an ICAO code, so
when an airport that has an FAA identifier that has digits in it gets
weather, it changes identifier to match its new ICAO code.

Unfortunately, when you're talking about FAA airports outside of the lower
48, like Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or other US protectorates, the
mapping between FAA code and ICAO code is much less easy. I've never
found a good source of mappings between ICAO and FAA codes except in the
DAFIF file, and that's gone the way of the Dodo bird.

"Tom L." wrote in message
...

Are there any rules or guidelines out there specifying how to assign
IDs to airports?


FAA Order 7350.7 LOCATION IDENTIFIERS

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraff.../CH1.htm#1-2-7

Andrew Sarangan wrote:
It is most likely due to a a weather station being installed at the
airport. I believe ICAO does not allow numbers in airport codes.

Canandaigua has an AWOS, but its code is D38. However the AWOS does not
get reported if you ring flight service, or look up the METARS on ADDS.
Saratoga, NY 5B3 is another example of this.




Matt Whiting wrote:

Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers? I flew
into Hilton Head twice years ago and the first time I listed the ID as
49J and the second time as HXD. The first flight was in 1994 and the
second in 1996. I did a decode on 49J and it shows as a non-existent
identifier. HXD is current for Hilton Head. I found a few sites that
say the ID changed with airline service was added, but I've not found
any site that contains such history in general.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers?

Check this out: http://www.airnav.com/airports/id-changes-all.html. It
supposedly goes back to 1995.

While on the subject, I'll comment that keeping one's GPS database
current is a good idea - even if you only use it for VFR situational
awareness. If you don't you are likely to see identifiers appear on
your moving map that don't agree with your charts (assuming that they
are current as well). Been there, done that (with a borrowed GPS).

David Johnson

Dave wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

Is anyone aware of a source for changes in airport identifiers?


Check this out: http://www.airnav.com/airports/id-changes-all.html. It
supposedly goes back to 1995.

While on the subject, I'll comment that keeping one's GPS database
current is a good idea - even if you only use it for VFR situational
awareness. If you don't you are likely to see identifiers appear on
your moving map that don't agree with your charts (assuming that they
are current as well). Been there, done that (with a borrowed GPS).

David Johnson


Thanks, just what the doctor ordered.

Matt