Every airport on earth has a three-letter identification code. This is usually an abbreviation of the city name (e.g. Boston - BOS) or an abbreviation of the airport name (e.g. New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport - JFK.) But in Canada, for reasons no one seems to fully understand, all airports have a code starting with Y. For instance, the local airport just east of Kitchener is YKF. In some cases, the second and third letters are an abbreviation of the city name (e.g. Ottawa has the unfortunate identification, YOW.) But in other cases, no part of the name makes sense. The prime example is Canada's most heavily-used airport, Toronto's Pearson International Airport, known to all the world as YYZ.
Why would a person like myself - who rarely flies - care about this? Because I've noticed the strange trend that Canadians seem to be embracing their nonsensical airport codes as civic symbols. During last year's floods in Calgary, Twitter users started using #YYC as a short form for the city. Now I see an ad where Edmonton is using YEG in a web site about the city.
It's kind of fun, and quite Canadian to embrace such oddness. But it is still confusing. My knowledge of the codes is pretty much all in this article. Well, I did also learn while researching this that Vancouver's YVR is said to stand for "Yes, Very Rainy." But the point is, if someone from, say, Winnipeg were to brag about their city by talking about "The YWG," it would be lost on me.
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