What does X stand for in LAX?

Answer 1

international

Answer 2

Every airport in the world has a unique 3 - letter code (sometimes there are 1 or 2 numbers in the code as well at smaller airports, but the letters are always capitalized). It doesn't mean anything, its just the code so that pilots and air traffic controllers don't get confused when there is more than one airport in a city (for example London has LHR, LGW, LTN etc) or if there is more than one city by the same name (for example London, UK and London, Canada). So the important thing is that the code specifies the airport, not the city.

Here are some examples of some of the world's major airports:

Los Angeles LAX
Las Vegas LAS
Atlanta ATL
New York JFK (Kennedy)
Newark EWR
Kansas City MCI
Chicago ORD (O'Hare)
Houston IAH
Vancouver YVR
Toronto YYZ (all Cdn airports begin with a Y)
Amsterdam AMS
Sydney SYD (australia)
Hong Kong HKG
Milan MXP
Stockholm ARN (after Arlanda, the town with the airport)
Paris CDG (Charles de Gaulle)

So sometimes the code reflects the city's name, sometimes it doesn't. It has nothing to do with international as suggested by some other answers, otherwise every international airport would end with an X.

ICAO is the world body that regulates the codes, and makes sure there are no duplicates. I'm not exactly sure of the history of the LAX code, but it seems logical that L and A come from Los Angeles, and they had to add a third letter to keep the code unique.

LAX is sometimes called KLAX, where the K signifies that the airport is in the US. Also certain navigational facilities at airports are sometimes preceded by another letter, depending on the type of facility, such as ILAX.

Answer 3

I'm not sure how accurate this is but the information I have is this:

Decades ago when air travel was just becomming popular, the major airports were identified by their weather reporting station ID, which was two letters. When the US standardized these identifiers into three letter codes they took some of the weather station IDs on the west coast and added an "X" to the end making them three-letter codes.....thus LA became LAX.

PDX (Portland), PHX (Phoenix), SMX (Santa Maria), and NKX (Miramar) are other examples as well.

Answer 4

So far astar is the most right. For a complete and very interesting history of this subject, see:
http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html

Answer 5

Nothing. It's just the airport code.

Answer 6

international

Answer 7

x-elent airport?