The ECP Code

I recall they were given a short list from FAA of codes that were available, and the airport responded with 3 from the list in no preferred order. FAA then assigned ECP - any correlation is coincidence. They ran out of 3-letter codes with "relevance" to location, and often the relevance is no longer valid, like "PFN" relating to "Panama City - Fannin Field". I was born here and i don't know who Fannin is/was (or Hathaway either). The codes are all over the place - person names (JFK - changed from IDL for Idlewild, a place), (BDL - Bradley - Hartford), city names (BOS, MIA, TLH,TPA), airport names (RSW - used to be SW Florida Regional, now SW Florida International - Ft Myers), (IAH - Houston Intercontinental), and meaningless (4R4 - Fairhope AL), (YUL - Montreal), (ECP - NWFBIA).

There's an interesting web article about arcane airport codes at http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html

in reference to:

"I recall they were given a short list from FAA of codes that were available, and the airport responded with 3 from the list in no preferred order.  FAA then assigned ECP - any correlation is coincidence.  They ran out of 3-letter codes with "relevance" to  location, and often the relevance is no longer valid, like "PFN" relating to "Panama City - Fannin Field".  I was born here and i don't know who Fannin is/was (or Hathaway either).  The codes are all over the place - person names (JFK - changed from IDL for Idlewild, a place), (BDL - Bradley - Hartford), city names (BOS, MIA, TLH,TPA), airport names (RSW - used to be SW Florida Regional, now SW Florida International - Ft Myers), (IAH - Houston Intercontinental), and meaningless (4R4 - Fairhope AL), (YUL - Montreal), (ECP - NWFBIA).There's an interesting web article about arcane airport codes at    http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html"
- The News Herald (view on Google Sidewiki)