ConradBirdie

I have been battling the wits with some people over the code for a certain airport. They all say it's one thing, while I say it's not.
Why? Because every website they've found with it says it is.

Look this up on the web,
What does CVG stand for?
Every blasted web site I've seen say it is for Covington, Ky.
Because that was the biggest major city in Kentucky at the time the airport was built. Or, it was the nearest city.

When I was a child in the fifties, I was at that airport for an open house.
Sitting in the pilot's seat of a DC-9, I asked the pilot, "What does CVG mean?".
Cincinnati
Vicinity
Greater.

At that time, there were a few other airports that had this VG code as well.
Today, there are 3. PVG is Shanghai Pudong.

The Covington thing comes from the fact, as I see it, comes from the time when the cable tv industry came to be, a certain weather channel host had no clues so he saw covington on the map and used that. So over the years, people believe that and when the internet comes along, nobody bothers to confirm.

I have written to the IATA and the Kenton Co. Airporit Board (the owners), with no reply from either.

Can anyone confirm what I was told and have a way to do so online?

USMCFLYR

In my world - CVG is the identifier for either the LOCALIZER for RWY 36C or the VORTAC at Covington, KY.
KCVG would be the airport identifier.

Now as to why they chose those 3 letters for the airport identifer I do not know.
I always thought there was a little bit of smoke and mirrors, though your explanation of:
sounds pretty good

Hope you get the answer you are looking for from some encyclopedia on the forum!

ConradBirdie

Correct. Technically it should be KCVG,
In some cases, in the USm if the first letter of the city is a K or W, that is dropped and they use the next 3 letters.
EYW=Keywest Fl.
ISM=Kissimmee Fl

But I've never seen luggage tags with the K or W.
Maybe on international flights.

USMCFLYR

I've not seen this.
Airports have 'K' in the continental US at least, isn't it 'P' in Alaska for you guys that fly a lot up there?
I've not been up there in years.
I remember it being 'R' in Japan.

Airport identifiers aren't always related to the name of some town close-by.
Today I shot approaches into K2H2, KMO3, KM17 for example.

Your examples of EYW - in my world now - would still be EYM for the Key West VORTAC and KEYW for Key West Intl.

They mean something when filing/getting ATC clearences for instance.
Getting cleared to ABQ (the navaid) and ABQ (the airport) are two different things

Well bags don't get dropped off at localizers (usually)

Packrat

"P" means Pacific. Alaska qualifies as does Hawai'i.

cencal83406

I think what he meant is:

Instead of "KKYW" it becomes "KEYW"; instead of "KKSM", "KISM".

Twin Wasp

There are two standards for airport identifiers, ICAO and IATA. The ATA codes are the three letter codes you're used to seeing on bag tags. The ICAO codes are four letter. For most ICAO codes the first letter is a region, the second letter is the country and the last two letters are the airport. So E - Northern Europe, H - Holland, AM is Amsterdam Schiphol. R - western Pacific, K - Korea SI is the Seoul Inchon airport. Works good as long as you have less then 676 airports in your country. In the ICAO system the U.S. is it's own region so there is no second letter country code. So the major airports in the US have the same ID just with a K in front for ICAO purposes. Alaska and Hawaii are in the P region for ICAO and have A and H as their second letter. So we get PANC and ANC for Anchorage but PASI and SIT for Sitka. Same thing PHNL and HNL for Honolulu but PHOG and OGG for Maui.

As for the OP's question, I'd stick with Covington. The field was lobbied for by a group of Kentucky folks during WWII. If it was going to be the Greater Cincinnati Vicinity airport, why didn't they just make it GCV?

It used to be fun to get pilots to look for the Cincinnati airport charts in the government NOS chart books. Because Ohio and Kentucky were in different books, they'd pull their hair since all they could find was Lunken - LUK.

JamesNoBrakes

Not only that, but the second letter of a 4-ICAO in Alaska is usually A, for "Alaska", so PA_ _ is what most airports are, although a few, like Anchorage, don't follow that (it would be PAAN instead of PANC).

Valdez, PAVD
Merrill Field, PAMR
Barrow, PABR

EasternATC

Part of the FAA naming convention is that three-letter airport identifiers do not start with K or W, lest they be confused with radio or TV call letters.

NotPart91

CVG was the original identifier for the local weather station if built before an Air Field or NAV AID.

Possibly circa after 1947 it was the Radio Identifier of the Air Field or NAV AID, (with a Morse Code ID of Dah-Dit-Dah-Dit/Dit-Dit-Dit-Dah/Dah-Dah-Dit

I can't remember the last time I transcribed written Code

You guys need to open up the books more often instead of relying on Glass... :P