Airport code search

Look up any airport in the world by ICAO code, IATA code, name or city.

Search a database of tens of thousands of airports, airfields and heliports — from the world's busiest hubs to remote gravel strips. Type at least two characters: an ICAO code like EGLL, an IATA code like LHR, an airport name, or a city.

Enter an airport name or code to begin.

ICAO codes vs IATA codes

Airports carry two different codes, and they are used by different people for different jobs.

An ICAO code is four letters, assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization, and it is what pilots and air traffic controllers actually use — in flight plans, on charts and over the radio. The letters are regional, which makes them readable once you know the pattern: EG is the United Kingdom (EGLL Heathrow), K the contiguous United States (KJFK), OM the United Arab Emirates (OMDB Dubai), LF France, RJ Japan. Because they are globally unique and systematically allocated, every airfield with instrument procedures has one.

An IATA code is three letters, issued by the International Air Transport Association, and it belongs to the commercial side of aviation: your boarding pass, baggage tag and booking reference. LHR, JFK, DXB. Only airports with scheduled passenger service generally need one, which is why most of the airfields in this database have an ICAO code but no IATA code at all.

What is in this database

The list goes far beyond the airports you fly from. Alongside the major international hubs it contains regional fields, military air bases, private strips, seaplane bases and heliports — tens of thousands of landing sites in total, spread across more than two hundred countries and territories.

That is why many results show an ICAO code but a dash under IATA: a remote airstrip needs an identifier for flight planning, but has no scheduled airline service to need a passenger-facing code. A few entries have neither, and are listed by name and location alone.

Searching matches partial codes, so typing HE lists the Egyptian airfields whose ICAO codes begin with those letters. Results are ranked by what matched: ICAO code first, then IATA code, then airport name — with one exception, a code typed in full jumps straight to the top, so LHR gives you Heathrow rather than every code that happens to contain those letters.

Want to control one of these?

The ATC Radar Simulator lets you work the approach radar at a growing set of real terminal areas — see the airports you can control. Your local field not among them? You can build it yourself as a small JSON file and upload it in the game; the coordinates above are the right starting point.