Recognised by both travellers and aviation professionals, IATA airport codes are the three-letter shorthand that makes navigating the world’s airports manageable.
Introduced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in the 1960s, these codes created a standardised system that airlines, travel agents, and passengers rely on from flight bookings to baggage handling.
While many codes simply reflect the airport’s city or name, others carry deeper significance, offering glimpses into local history, geography, and culture.
In India, some of the straightforward codes include:
- DEL: Indira Gandhi International Airport (Delhi)
- HYD: Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (Hyderabad)
Other locations reflect more complex names or history, while ensuring the airports are assigned unique codes.
BLR: Kempegowda International Airport (Bengaluru)
Here, the code draws from the anglicised version of the city’s name, ‘Bangalore,’ condensed into three letters for clarity and uniqueness.
BBI: Biju Patnaik Airport (Bhubaneswar)
Though less immediately obvious, the code uses consonants from the city name to create a concise, three-letter identifier.
With a finite set of three‑letter combinations, uniqueness acts as a constraint, meaning some codes may feel less intuitive, more compact or involve compromises.
BOM: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (Mumbai)
Here, the code reflects the city’s former name, ‘Bombay.’ Even after the official renaming to Mumbai, BOM remained, preserving a link to the city’s history.
CCU: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata
Kolkata’s airport code, CCU, reflects its old name, Calcutta. Like BOM for Mumbai, it’s a reminder that IATA codes don’t always follow present-day city names; instead, they capture historical identities while maintaining global consistency.
MAA: Chennai International Airport
Likewise, Chennai’s code harks back to the city’s former name, Madras. Even decades after the official renaming, the IATA code preserves a piece of the city’s colonial and cultural history.
COK: Cochin International Airport, Kochi
Cochin International Airport’s code, COK, comes from the city’s older Anglicised name, Cochin. It demonstrates the practical need for codes to be short and unique, even if they don’t perfectly match modern spellings.
GOI: Goa International Airport, Dabolim
GOI, for Goa’s main airport, takes its code from the state rather than the city of Dabolim. This approach highlights how IATA codes can emphasise broader regional identity when a city name alone might be less recognisable internationally.
These examples show both the logic and limitations: when a city’s name is short or unique (e.g. Delhi, Hyderabad), a direct abbreviation works. When a name is long or has variants, codes often reflect older names or use compact letter combinations.
New Airports and Modern Code Assignments
As India expands its aviation infrastructure, building new airports, greenfield hubs, and modern terminals, the assignment of IATA codes remains an administrative necessity and a subtle act of identity‑marking.
For example, the upcoming Noida International Airport (at Jewar, near Delhi) was recently assigned the code DXN. According to its operator, the ‘D’ stands for Delhi, while the ‘N’ stands for Noida, reflecting its dual linkage to the national capital region.
This demonstrates how code assignment is still an active decision, balancing geography and identity. The choice of code for new airports can subtly reflect how operators see the airport’s identity, its relationship to a city or region, or ambitions in global connectivity.
To many travellers, IATA codes are simply convenient shorthand on tickets, baggage tags, or flight‑search websites. However, they are also mini time capsules and capsules of identity.
In a country like India, where cities evolve, names change, and new airports rise, these codes chronicle that evolution. They are part of the aviation infrastructure while also being part of the social, political and geographic fabric of India.
