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Some airports are identified even in colloquial speech by their airport code . The most notable example is LAX . Most large airports in Canada have codes that begin with the letter " Y ", although not all " Y " codes are Canadian ( for example , YUM for Yuma , Arizona ) and not all Canadian airports start with the letter " Y " ( for example ZBF for Bathurst , New Brunswick ). Many Canadian airports have a code that starts with W , X or Z , but none of these are major airports . When the Canadian transcontinental railways were built , each station was assigned its own two letter Morse code . VR was Vancouver , TZ Toronto , QB Quebec , WG Winnipeg , SJ St . Johns , YC Calgary , OW Ottawa , EG Edmonton , etc . When the Canadian government established airports , it used the existing railway codes for them as well . If the airport had a weather station , authorities added a " Y " to the front of the code , meaning " Yes " to indicate it had a weather station , or some other letter to indicate it did not . When international codes were created in cooperation with the United States , because " Y " was seldom used in the US , Canada simply used the weather station codes for its airports , changing the " Y " to a " Z " if it conflicted with an airport code already in use . The result is that most major Canadian airport codes start with " Y " followed by two letters in the city ' s name : YOW for Ottawa , YWG for Winnipeg , YYC for Calgary , and YVR for Vancouver , whereas other Canadian airports append the two letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport , such as YQX in Gander and YXS in Prince George . Four of the ten provincial capital airports in Canada have ended up with codes beginning with YY , including YYZ for Toronto , Ontario , YYJ for Victoria , British Columbia , YYT for Saint John ' s , Newfoundland , and YYG for Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island . Canada ' s largest airport is YYZ for Toronto-Pearson ( YTZ was used for Toronto City Airport , so YYZ is the station code for a village called Malton , which is where Toronto Pearson International Airport is actually located ). YUL is used for Montreal-Trudeau ( UL was the ID code for beacon in the city of Kirkland , now the location of Montreal-Trudeau ). While these codes make it difficult for the public to associate them with a particular Canadian city , some codes have become popular in usage despite their cryptic nature , particularly at the largest airports . Some airports have started using their IATA codes as marketing brands . Calgary International Airport has begun using its airport code YYC as a marketing brand and name for the airport authority web site ( yyc . com )., while Vancouver International Airport advertises as YVR ( yvr . com ). Numerous New Zealand airports use codes which contain a letter Z , to distinguish them from similar airport names in other countries . Examples include HLZ for Hamilton , ZQN for Queenstown , and WSZ for Westport .
A - Z of Flight
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