2007-03-26 04:03:19 · 7 answers · asked by pj9337 1 in Travel ➔ Canada ➔ Toronto
Not sure I completely understand it all, but it has to do with a combination of old weather stations, radio signals, and city codes.
Good artilce here:
http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html
2007-03-26 04:15:01 · answer #1 · answered by wyntre_2000 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
All Canadian airports start with the letter Y as it was assigned when the three letter airport codes first were developed.
The first airports that adopted the codes when they came out were assigned two letters for the city and an X at the end, which explains how we ended up with LAX for Los Angeles and PDX for Portland.
In Canada, they chose to use first letter Y to signify Canada because some letter Cs had already been taken and they wanted them all to be unique to Canada. Maybe it had something to do with the Canadian Yukon where we had several radio towers and manned outposts.
But the rest of the letters don't always make sense in the three letter codes. There is an indication that Canada was trying to follow suit like in the States...since they ended the first airport codes with an X, we used the Y in the second position to be similar. That is why you have Victoria (YYJ), St. John's (YYT), Calgary (YYC), and Toronto (YYZ). And some do make sense, like Quebec City (YQB) and Vancouver (YVR).
I guess you have to figure with just the three codes to work with, if Saint John, NB and St John's, NF both wanted the code YSJ it would be difficult to accomodate them, and what about St. Jerome or St. Julie airports?
2007-03-26 11:48:12 · answer #2 · answered by SteveN 7 · 3⤊ 1⤋
If you are referring to, YYZ or Pearson International; for one thing it is not in Toronto, it is in Mississauga. And the only airport in Toronto is the Island airport and it has it's own three letter designation starting with Y all
Canadian airports have designations starting with Y.
2007-03-26 15:10:26 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Torrington Municipal Airport in Wyoming has the honnor of being called Tor
2007-03-26 11:17:15 · answer #4 · answered by distant_foe 4 · 4⤊ 1⤋
It is just that when the 3 letter codes for cities and airports were allocated Canada for some reason was allocated the y prefix for all of it's codes, hence YYZ/YUL/YMX etc etc. someone out there might remember why but I can't.
2007-03-26 11:09:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
they changed the name years ago now it's called Pearson int,
2007-03-26 11:12:16 · answer #6 · answered by jim m 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Because it doesn't want to be.
2007-03-26 11:07:03 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋