what does the 'X' stand for in?

Question

LAX - los angeles airport?

Answer 1

I am a flight attendant and we learned in training what is really behind the airport codes.

I live in Milwaukee ...Its is MKE. Easy right?

kansas city is ... MCI

Baltimore... BWI

and in canada all of the airports have a z or x in them, I forgte which way it goes.

We were told that It is after the city, the airport or random because the others are taken.

The "X" does not mean International, International is "I" and all international Airports dont have an "I" in there name

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

All cities and airports have a three-letter code in aviation (called "Location Identifier").

Many airport codes are simply the first three letters of the city name: ATL is Atlanta, BOS is Boston, MIA is Miami, SIN is Singapore, and SYD is Sydney, Australia. The first letter(s) of multiple cities served forms other codes: DFW for Dallas Fort Worth, MSP for Minneapolis/St. Paul, and GSP for Greenville/Spartenburg, South Carolina. Sometimes the city name lends itself to one letter for each word, such as Salt Lake City (SLC), Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago (POS), or even Port au Prince, Haiti (PAP).

When the Wright brothers first took to the air in 1903, there was no need for coding airports since an airport was literally any convenient field with a strong wind. However, the National Weather Service did tabulate data from cities around the country using a two-letter identification system. Early airlines simply copied this system, but as airline service exploded in the 1930's, towns without weather station codes needed identification. Some bureaucrat had a brainstorm and the three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17,576 different combinations. To ease the transition, existing airports placed an X after the weather station code. The Los Angeles tag became LAX, Portland became PDX, Phoenix became PHX and so on.

Most of the "hard to decipher" identifiers become obvious if one knows the name of the airport rather than the city served. Two good examples from Louisiana are MSY and ESF—Moisant Field in New Orleans and Esler Field in Alexandra. Orly airport (ORY) and Charles De Gaule airport (CDG) serve Paris, France, while Tokyo, Japan has the Narita airport (NRT). When you know what the code represents, some curious acronyms become obvious: CMH is Columbus Municipal Hangar, BWI is Baltimore Washington International, LGW is London Gatwick, and LHR is London Heathrow!

Some special interest groups successfully lobbied the government to obtain their own special letters. The Navy saved all the new 'N' codes. Naval aviators learn to fly at NPA in Pensacola, Florida and then dream of going to "Top Gun" in Miramar, California (NKX). The Federal Communications Committee set aside the 'W' and 'K' codes for radio stations east and west of the Mississippi respectively. 'Q' was designated for international telecommunications. 'Z' was reserved for special uses. The Canadians made off with all the remaining 'Y codes which helps explain YUL for Montreal, YYC for Calgary, etc. One of the special uses for 'Z' is identifying locations in cyberspace. What am I talking about? Well, an example is ZCX the computer address of the FAA's air traffic control headquarters central flow control facility. ZCX is not an airport but a command center just outside Washington D.C., that controls the airline traffic into major terminals.

The lack of these letters puts a crimp in the logic of some codes: if the city starts with a 'N', 'W', or 'K', it's time to get creative! Norfolk, Virginia, ignored the 'N' to get ORF; Newark, New Jersey, is EWR, Newport News, Virginia, chose to use the name of the airport to get PHF -Patrick Henry Field. Both Wilmington, North Carolina and Key West, Florida followed Norfolk's lead to obtain ILM and EYW. West Palm Beach in Florida did some rearranging to get PBI -Palm Beach International; Kansas City, Missouri became MKC and more recently the 'new' Kansas City airport chose MCI. (The code for Kansas City International Airport, MCI, was assigned during the early design phase of the airport when the name was going to be Mid-Continent International. Shortly before it opened, Kansas City officials decided to change the name so people would know what city it was in. It was too late to change the code.)

Answer 3

its a placeholder. airport identifiers are three characters so the X in LAX is a placeholder.

Answer 4

its a placeholder