When Airport Codes Are Smiling. Quiz

Answer: San Francisco

The International Air Transport Association assigns a unique three letter identifier to each airport. EDI and SYD are airport codes for Edinburgh and Sydney respectively. San Diego is SAN, San Francisco is SFO.

As airport codes are unique to each city, how long will it be before marketers exploit this uniqueness by marketing the code. SAN, is often mistaken as San Francisco's code but the city (surely one of the world's most beautiful cities), could be marketed as: Scintillating, Fascinating Overwhelming.
It immediately becomes distinct from San Diego, which could always be marketed as Sunny, Always Nice.

[The clue depicts one of San Francisco's characteristic steep streets].

Answer: Las Vegas

Los Angeles - LAX
Phoenix - PHX
Portland OR - PDX
Las Vegas - LAS

Arguably, LAX is the world's most well known airport code and the city actively markets the code and the connection to the city. Phoenix and Portland less so. Given the number of cities in the world that start with "Las", Las Vegas is fortunate to have this code.

Las Vegas is of the world's most famous cities, known for its casinos. Some would argue that LAS stands for "Losing All Savings", perhaps a more palatable jingle for city marketers would be "Luck And Serendipity".

[The clue depicts a feature of Las Vegas - imitation].

Answer: YRK - Toronto

Previous Names:
Beijing was PEKing
Mumbai was BOMbay
Ho Chi Minh City was SaiGoN.
Toronto was indeed once called York but the main airport, Lester B. Pearson, International is YYZ, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is YTZ.

One of the main oddities of airport codes is that most Canadian airports start with a "Y". This makes most Canadian airport codes counter-intuitive. However large cities like Vancouver (YVR - Yes Very Rainy) and Winnipeg (YWG - Yearly Winds & Gales) are easy to determine once you understand the "Y" first character.
YTO is the IATA code for all three Toronto airports.
Marketing opportunities with a mnemonic of YYZ are difficult though Toronto actives promotes itself as YYZ (I have a YYZ t-shirt from my visit).
The Canadian band Rush has a tribute to Toronto song called "YYZ". The opening notes spell YYZ in morse code.

[The photo depicts the interior of Toronto's main railroad station Union Station. Each of the ten Canadian provincial flags are displayed in geographical order]

Answer: Washington DC

Washington going backwards? Not a good adage but that is exactly what has happened.

Washington has three majors airports: Thurgood Marshall Baltimore Washington International is actually far closer to Baltimore than DC. Its IATA code is logically BWI.

However Federal Communications Committee commandeered the 'W' and 'K' codes for radio stations east and west of the Mississippi River respectively, so cities beginning with 'W' and 'K' were disadvantaged. Similarly the US Navy had nabbed all the 'N' codes. Therefore Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) was stymied on two counts. So DCA seemed logical for District of Columbia Airport. However the larger newer Dulles airport west of D.C. became DIA (Dulles International Airport). But, the DIA and DCA were easily confused, so the characters were reversed - IAD. This is because "the first and second letters or second and third letters of an identifier may not be duplicated with less than 200 nautical miles separation."
Houston faced a similar problem the older Houston airport at Hobby field was HOU so when the newer Houston International Airport (now George Bush Intercontinental Airport) was built it became IAH.

[The photo clue shows the brutal modernist architecture of the inner city subway stations of Washington DC].

Answer: New York City

The main international airport for New York City was IDL for Idlewild, the location of the airport in Queens.
On December 24, 1963, only a month after President Kennedy was assassinated, the airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The old IDL tag was retired then recycled for Indianola, Mississippi (when codes were becoming scarce).

Miami's International Airport is Missing In Action - MIA
Fresno Yosemite International Airport was wishing it was a bit FITter instead of being handed the pejorative FAT.
Kansas City MO, shows how difficult it can be to change a code: Kansas City International Airport was assigned MCI, due to the airport being provisionally called Mid-Continent International. When the designers thought that no-one would know where the airport would be, the name became Kansas City International but the old code stuck. (The previous airport was MKC [Kansas City, Missouri]. Remember the'K' rule).

While this quiz explores marketing opportunities for a city's airport code, it would be poor form to commercialise JFK. The current code is a tribute and it deserves to be commercially untouched.

[The photo shows the futuristic TWA Flight Center designed by Modernist architect Eero Saarinen. The building was designed to look like a bird with outstretched wings. It is now defunct.]

Answer: ORD

Midway Airport (MDW) in Chicago was the world's busiest airport in the late forties and fifties in Chicago. However its proximity to surrounding residential areas precluded the runways being extended for the upcoming jet airliners so work started on developing the airfield connected to the wartime Douglas plant where C-54s were manufactured, near ORcharD Place on the outskirts of north-west Chicago. In 1949 the airport was renamed O'Hare International Airport after Edward O'Hare, a Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. ORD remained. Growth was slow at first, the major airlines being reluctant to leave Midway but when American Airlines and United moved hubs there, the airport became very active becoming the world's busiest airport (by number of takeoffs and landings) by the 1990s until 2005 when Atlanta took the title, only to be taken back by O'Hare in 2014.

Marketing opportunities for Chicago/ORD? Overwhelmingly Really Delightful?

[The photo shows Cloud Gate, a polished shell structure (nicknamed The Bean) located in downtown Chicago.]

Answer: Paris

CDG stands for Charles De Gaulle, (former President of France), the international airport of Paris located 25 km north as Paris. The airport is as also known as Roissy Airport, after the district in which it is located. In 2016, the airport was the ninth largest by passenger movements and the second in Europe after London Heathrow (LHR).
Aéroport de Paris Nord began construction in 1966 and was opened in 1974. Up to then the main airport was located at Orly (ORY) south of the city. Even though CDG is the busiest French airport, Orly remains an international airport and is the second busiest in France.

Could Paris as CDG be marketed as "Completely Delicious Gastronomy"?

[The photo shows part of the Louvre Pyramid (which is is a glass and metal pyramid designed by I.M. Pei. The controversial "annex" serves as the entrance to the Louvre in central Paris].

Answer: Cincinnati, OH

The airport in Cincinnati, Ohio is located across the Ohio River in Hebron near CoVinGton, Kentucky. Its full name is Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport with international routes to Mexico, the Caribbean, Toronto and Paris. CVG is the only airport in Ohio, Indiana,& Kentucky, that features direct routes to Europe. Delta has one of its ten US hubs at CVG but it is its second smallest.

Cincinnati Chili is different for people expecting the chili con carne associated with Texas. Cincinnati Chili recipes feature cinnamon and sometimes chocolate. Cincinnati has been called "Chili Capital of America" as it has more chili restaurants per person than any other city in the US.

[The photo shows the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, which when built in 1866 was a the longest suspension bridge in the world with a span of 1035 feet. It connects Cincinnati with Covington and was a key plot point in the "Ides of March" (2011)].

Answer: Yes

Sioux City has worked hard to get rid of its airport code of SUX. GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY were offered as alternatives but airport trustees didn't like any of these alternatives. They bit the bullet and decided to promote the city with a "Fly Sux" campaign, the success of which is hard to determine as it is a small city of less than 100,000 people in a low tourism area and a small affiliate airport with American Airline connections to Chicago and Dallas. The city features a famous casino and is well known for its loose meat sandwiches called Charlie Boys.

[The photo shows a Sioux City I-29 and Missouri River cityscape. Note Siouxland Veterans Memorial Bridge].

Answer: Madrid, Singapore, Helsinki

The three airports are, respectively, Madrid, Singapore and Helsinki, the capital cities of their counties and the largest airports in their respective countries. Both Madrid Airport and Singapore Airport have been consistently in the busiest twenty airports in the world (>30m passengers per year) for the the two decades either side of the millennium with Helsinki being smaller but creditable, with 17 million passengers in 2016. The three airports are also hubs for their national carriers: Iberia (Spain); Singapore Airlines and Finnair, with the latter two serving all three airports named in this question.
These airports are so well known that their airline code is barely noticed. However cities like Dumai, Indonesia is DUM, Norway's Bodo Airport is BOO. Headingly, Western Australia, is HIP. Hot Springs, Arkansas, is HOT and Willow, Alaska, is WOW. Marketing opportunities abound.

[The photo shows Kilometer Zero in Puerto del Sol in Madrid, the marker from where all distances in Spain are measured].