Saturday, July 3, 2010

Spokane Airport Code -- GEG


Spokane International Airport is one of the few U.S. air terminals to use an airport code completely unrelated to the spelling of the home city. True there is ORD and MCO and a few others but most often in the USA the airport code reflects the initials of the city.

Of course Canadian airport codes have NOTHING to do with the spelling of the city in English and many international airports are also unrelated to how we spell the name of the nearest city.

All that being said -- I find it a source of some personal enjoyment whenever I use the code for Spokane -- GEG. I think I like being different. Of course there is also a pretty cool reason why Spokane International goes by GEG.

According to our friends at Wikipedia the initials honor WWI aviation pioneer Harold Geiger who as far as I can tell never came to the Lilac City. Strange but true. And in an unusual way it is similar to the story behind the Orlando Airport Code - MCO.

So next time you fly to Spokane - check your e-ticket or your baggage claim and notice which airport code applies to your destination -- not SPO -- that is San Pablo, Spain and not SPK - that is Sapporo, Japan. No for those of us in Spokane, Washington we're sticking with good old - GEG.

Now you know...
GHT

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