Airline Codes are used as marks of identity by the regional and international airlines

The International Air Transport Association popularly known as IATA assigns every airline of the world a two-digit code. This is called airline code and designates the airline company’ registration with IATA. It is also used as a personal code of recognition among other airline companies. This code is referred as IATA airline designator or IATA reservation code. As far as the kinds of these codes are concerned, there are three main types i.e. unique, numeric/alpha and controlled duplicate. The controlled duplicate code refers to the codes assigned by IATA previously to some airline in the past and is no more in use. As soon as any airline company gets detached with the IATA registration, the airline company is not allowed to use the same code for any purpose. This code remains unused for a period of six months, after that it may be allotted to any other airline company by IATA and is called as controlled duplicate.  IATA authorities do not issue the controlled duplicate to international airlines. Most often the controlled duplicate codes are issued to regional airlines whose network of destinations is limited to the boundaries of a specific country. This is done so because allotting of controlled duplicate codes to international airline companies may create similarity with some other airline and can cause many problems of an airline identity.

The airline company uses the code assigned by IATA at various places. The most common use of IATA code is with booking numbers, tariff bills, airway bills, and memo numbers in official correspondence. Every airline company is bound to use the IATA code under the IATA Resolution 762. The authorities of IATA also provide the airline companies some specific numbers, which are used as the prefixes to the ticket numbers of the airline. These are also included among the airline codes. Such prefixes have no similarity with the prefixes of any other airline company in the world. Thus the airline codes are specific identity marks of the airline companies. The airline codes assigned by IATA consist of English alphabets and one or two numeric. The International Civil Aviation Organization abbreviated as ICAO, is another internationally recognized body, which assigns designators or codes to the airline companies of the world. These codes consist of usually three alphabets. The airline companies use these codes with their flight operation and as an official insignia of registration with ICAO. The ICAO codes never match with already established acronyms like SOS etc to avoid confusion.

The airline codes are usually ambiguous and a layman cannot understand to which phrase of words they refer. If you have an access to the Internet, you can find many websites, which can help you understand various airline codes. These websites usually provide a search bar on their websites. You just need to write down the code in the bar and the website responds and answers instantly to your query. Most of such websites are thoroughly designed and can also answer the codes related to the airports and the aircrafts codes also.