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112-529: Roberts International Airport ( IATA : ROB , ICAO : GLRB ), informally also known as Robertsfield , is an international airport in the West African nation of Liberia . Located near the town of Harbel in Margibi County , the single runway airport is about 35 miles (56 km) outside of the nation's capital of Monrovia , and as an origin and destination point is referred to as "Monrovia". Locally, it

224-545: A Boeing 767-300 thrice-weekly to and from New York-JFK, while maintaining the stop in Accra. Daily commercial traffic peaked in this year, with one or two daily arrivals. The busiest and most frequent connection was to Accra , with four airlines providing at least one flight per day on the route, which for a time made it the third-busiest connection from Accra and one of the top 15 route pairs in West and Central Africa, although service on

336-507: A "BUA Division" and "Caledonian Division" during the interim period. The former was responsible for all IATA activities. This encompassed all scheduled services. The latter was responsible for all non-IATA work. This included all non-scheduled operations. At that time, two-thirds of all passengers were carried on charter flights . During that period, former BUA air hostesses still wearing that airline's blue uniforms were working alongside their tartan -clad, former Caledonian counterparts in

448-513: A Defense Pact with the United States . This commenced a period of strategic road building and other construction related to US military interests in checking the expansion of the Axis powers . The airport was originally built by the U.S. government as an Air Force base as part of these activities. The runway was built long enough for B-47 Stratojet bombers to land for refueling, giving Liberia what

560-578: A few days later. Earl Mountbatten of Burma was BCal's chief guest on board its inaugural Gatwick—JFK flight. (The flight diverted to Boston due to inclement weather in the New York area.) This occasion marked the first time that a British independent airline commenced non-stop transatlantic scheduled services on routes linking the UK and the US. Also on 1 April 1973, BCal replaced the two-letter CA airline designator – which

672-493: A few hundred combinations; a three-letter system of airport codes was implemented. This system allowed for 17,576 permutations, assuming all letters can be used in conjunction with each other. Since the U.S. Navy reserved "N" codes, and to prevent confusion with Federal Communications Commission broadcast call signs , which begin with "W" or "K", the airports of certain U.S. cities whose name begins with one of these letters had to adopt "irregular" airport codes: This practice

784-442: A further £5 million. Caledonian's acquisition of BUA from B&C did not include the assets of British United Island Airways (BUIA), BUA's regional affiliate. BCal was a wholly owned subsidiary of Caledonian Airways Ltd. BCal itself had a number of subsidiaries as well. Amongst these were Caledonian Airways Equipment Holdings and Caledonian Airways (Leasing), which were set up to acquire and dispose of aircraft on behalf of

896-463: A handful of African airports with service to the US, so was therefore seen as a major step in the recovery of not just the airport, but Liberia itself. The route was revised in May to originate from New York's JFK and connect via Dakar , beginning on 9 June, Monday, and returning every Tuesday. One week prior to the inaugural flight, Delta announced that its planned launch would be suspended indefinitely. It

1008-465: A licence and sole UK flag carrier status to commence scheduled services from Gatwick to Dallas–Fort Worth . In addition, BCal obtained a licence and sole UK flag carrier status to commence scheduled all cargo flights between Gatwick and Houston — including an optional stop at Manchester or Prestwick in either direction. During the Bermuda II negotiations, the UK side succeeded in having inserted into

1120-543: A local tour operator . BCal also decided to increase its 707 freighter fleet from one to four aircraft and to acquire a five-seater Piper Aztec to serve the rapidly growing executive charter market. These changes left BCal with 25 operational aircraft for the 1975 summer season. To reduce operating costs further, the airline decided to contract out its scheduled operations between Gatwick and Le Touquet to BIA. The reason for replacing BCal's One-Eleven 200 jet aircraft on this route with that airline's Herald turboprops at

1232-609: A major expansion of its route network in Africa, it would begin a once-weekly service between Atlanta and Monrovia, via Sal , Cape Verde. The proposed service would have commenced in June 2009, utilizing a Boeing 757-200 configured for ETOPS operations in a two-class configuration. The news marked the return of an American carrier and direct flights to the United States for the first time since Pan Am's withdrawal, and would make RIA one of only

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1344-583: A major expansion, including the opening of a new passenger terminal. The facility with its 11,000 feet (3,353 m) long runway was an emergency landing site for the United States' Space Shuttle program and is one of only two with paved runways in the country. While Monrovia's secondary airport, Spriggs Payne , is much closer to the city center and possesses the nation's only other paved runway, it has not had scheduled commercial service since ASKY Airlines suspended service in November 2014. In 1942, Liberia signed

1456-513: A new air services agreement, which resulted in the Bermuda II Agreement of 1977. This presented BCal with new transatlantic opportunities to begin scheduled services to additional gateway cities in the US. Under the new agreement, BCal had its licences to commence scheduled services from its Gatwick base to both Houston and Atlanta confirmed and was designated as the UK's exclusive flag carrier on both routes. It also obtained

1568-550: A new airport is built, replacing the old one, leaving the city's new "major" airport (or the only remaining airport) code to no longer correspond with the city's name. The original airport in Nashville, Tennessee, was built in 1936 as part of the Works Progress Administration and called Berry Field with the designation, BNA. A new facility known as Nashville International Airport was built in 1987 but still uses BNA. This

1680-474: A number of additional, second-hand Boeing 707s from various sources through its aircraft trading and leasing subsidiaries during the early 1970s. These included a pair of 320C series aircraft procured on a long-term lease from Britannia Airways featuring a two-class, "widebody look" interior. Another three 707s received re-modelled "widebody" cabins. All five were used to inaugurate the airline's transatlantic scheduled routes to New York and Los Angeles where

1792-525: A profit of £1.7 million (after accounting for BUA's £600,000 loss) In 1972, BCal extended its East African network to the Seychelles . The same year it also introduced a new Edinburgh — Newcastle — Copenhagen regional scheduled service to live up to its claim of being " Scotland 's international airline". This complemented the Glasgow —Newcastle— Amsterdam regional route BCal had inherited from BUA. 1972

1904-453: A small profit of £250,000 during the financial year ended 30 September 1975 after having lost £4.3 million the year before. The then Trade Secretary Peter Shore conducted a review of the Government's aviation policy and in 1976 announced a new "spheres of influence" policy that ended dual designation for British airlines on all long-haul routes. It was no longer believed that competition

2016-439: A three-year exclusivity period for the incumbent operator on any new route with their US counterparts. For Gatwick-based BCal this meant that it did not have to face any competitor that was using Heathrow, a more accessible airport with a bigger catchment area and a far greater number of passengers connecting between flights, on any of the new routes it was planning to launch to the US. It also meant that it had any new route to

2128-480: A time a weekly Monrovia- Port of Spain - Miami flight. Until 1983, Air Afrique 's DC-10s also stopped at Robertsfield on that airline's Abidjan-Monrovia-Dakar-New York services. In April 1988, Zambia Airways commenced service from Lusaka to New York via Monrovia. In the past, Roberts Airport was listed as an alternative landing site for NASA 's Space Shuttle . During the Second Liberian Civil War ,

2240-499: Is GSN and its IATA code is SPN, and some coincide with IATA codes of non-U.S. airports. Canada's unusual codes—which bear little to no similarity with any conventional abbreviation to the city's name—such as YUL in Montréal , and YYZ in Toronto , originated from the two-letter codes used to identify weather reporting stations in the 1930s. The letters preceding the two-letter code follow

2352-399: Is a departures gallery with retail spaces and a business lounge. One of the most notable features of the new passenger terminal are the two jetway contact bridges—a first in the airport's history. The total project funding was reported to be US$ 80m—the new passenger terminal costing $ 50m, while the runway refurbishment was completed at a cost of $ 30m. China's Export-Import (EXIM) Bank financed

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2464-518: Is different from the name in English, yet the airport code represents only the English name. Examples include: Due to scarcity of codes, some airports are given codes with letters not found in their names: The use of 'X' as a filler letter is a practice to create three-letter identifiers when more straightforward options were unavailable: Some airports in the United States retained their NWS ( National Weather Service ) codes and simply appended an X at

2576-513: Is in conjunction to rules aimed to avoid confusion that seem to apply in the United States, which state that "the first and second letters or second and third letters of an identifier may not be duplicated with less than 200 nautical miles separation." Thus, Washington, D.C. area's three airports all have radically different codes: IAD for Washington–Dulles , DCA for Washington–Reagan (District of Columbia Airport), and BWI for Baltimore (Baltimore–Washington International, formerly BAL). Since HOU

2688-532: Is not followed outside the United States: In addition, since three letter codes starting with Q are widely used in radio communication, cities whose name begins with "Q" also had to find alternate codes, as in the case of: IATA codes should not be confused with the FAA identifiers of U.S. airports. Most FAA identifiers agree with the corresponding IATA codes, but some do not, such as Saipan , whose FAA identifier

2800-541: Is often referred to as simply "RIA." The airport is named in honor of Joseph Jenkins Roberts , the first President of Liberia . The airport is the nation's busiest and most important aviation facility, currently hosting the country's only scheduled commercial airline services, with direct connections to several major cities in West Africa as well as flights to Europe on Brussels Airlines . The airport reportedly served 228,000 passengers annually in 2018 and recently underwent

2912-416: Is used for William P. Hobby Airport , the new Houston–Intercontinental became IAH. The code BKK was originally assigned to Bangkok–Don Mueang and was later transferred to Suvarnabhumi Airport , while the former adopted DMK. The code ISK was originally assigned to Gandhinagar Airport (Nashik's old airport) and later on transferred to Ozar Airport (Nashik's current airport). Shanghai–Hongqiao retained

3024-561: The Canadian transcontinental railroads were built, each station was assigned its own two-letter Morse code : When the Canadian government established airports, it used the existing railway codes for them as well. If the airport had a weather station, authorities added a "Y" to the front of the code, meaning "Yes" to indicate it had a weather station or some other letter to indicate it did not. When international codes were created in cooperation with

3136-547: The Court Line group and Horizon Holidays , the latter having provided work for three BCal short-haul aircraft prior to its collapse. There was also massive overcapacity on the North Atlantic routes. These circumstances forced BCal to put in place a major programme of retrenchment, known internally as Plan "S" (from "survival") Plan "S" began to be implemented from 1 November 1974. It resulted in route cut-backs — including

3248-570: The Moonjet trademark. This move, which was modelled on the high-frequency-low-fares operation run by Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), the original "no frills" airline, along the busy San Diego —Los Angeles— San Francisco air corridor in California , boosted passenger numbers and profitability on both routes. During that year, larger capacity, longer range and more fuel-efficient Boeing 707s replaced VC10s on BCal's South American routes, where

3360-579: The cabins of all passenger flights. Eventually, the Caledonian tartan uniforms became BCal's standard for female staff. Following the interim period, Caledonian Airways (Prestwick) Ltd and British United Airways Ltd were merged into British Caledonian Airways Ltd (BCal). All former BUA aircraft were repainted adopting Caledonian's livery featuring a prominent Scottish Lion Rampant on its aircraft's fins . At that time, all aircraft were named after famous Scots and well-known Scottish places. This tradition

3472-471: The list of Amtrak station codes . Airport codes arose out of the convenience that the practice brought pilots for location identification in the 1930s. Initially, pilots in the United States used the two-letter code from the National Weather Service (NWS) for identifying cities. This system became unmanageable for cities and towns without an NWS identifier, and the use of two letters allowed only

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3584-430: The "Second Force" in the 1969 Edwards report. The carrier slogan was Let's go British Caledonian in the 1970s and We never forget you have a choice in the 1980s. The BUA takeover enabled Caledonian to realise its long-held ambition to transform itself into a scheduled airline. The merged entity eventually became the UK's foremost independent, international scheduled airline. A series of major financial setbacks during

3696-738: The 1980s, as Pan Am's African network was slowly pulled down. Pan Am ended its management of the airport in 1985 but as late as 1986 the airport was still a stop on the JFK-Dakar-Monrovia-Lagos-Nairobi route. By 1987, Pan Am was no longer serving Monrovia at all. A number of European airlines also served the airport from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, including British Caledonian Airways with Boeing 707s , KLM Royal Dutch Airlines with Douglas DC-8s and Sabena , Swissair and UTA with these three air carriers all operating McDonnell Douglas DC-10s into Robertsfield. Scandinavian Airline System also served Monrovia, from Copenhagen . In

3808-512: The 707's greater range enabled the airline to run non-stop flights between London Gatwick and Rio de Janeiro , as well as on the West African trunk routes to Nigeria and Ghana. As a result of the then prevailing, ruinous rates in the charter market, which still accounted for half of BCal's business, the airline incurred a loss of £194,000 during the financial year to 30 September 1972. To support its ambitious expansion plans, BCal acquired

3920-757: The Atlantic. Their main base was at Takoradi , in the Gold Coast . The story of Roberts Field is consistently intertwined with the history of Pan American World Airways . In fact, from the end of World War II until 1985, the airport was administered and operated by Pan American under contract with the Republic of Liberia's Ministry of Transport. Monrovia was consistently a key link in Pan American's African network, usually an intermediate stop between Accra and Dakar , from which service continued onward to Europe and New York. In

4032-478: The British Caledonian name, the new airline legally constituted two separate entities — Caledonian Airways (Prestwick) Ltd and British United Airways Ltd. These traded together under the interim name Caledonian//BUA until September 1971. The combined airline carried a total of 2.6 million passengers during its first year of operation. For accounting purposes, BCal's aircraft were respectively allocated to

4144-662: The British Isles, Continental Europe, Africa and South America. Its scheduled ambitions were aided by the British Government transferring to it BOAC's West African trunk routes to Nigeria and Ghana as well as the corporation's North African route to Libya . These routes represented only 3% of BOAC's annual, worldwide turnover. The Government also agreed to let it serve Casablanca in Morocco from Gatwick in competition with BEA's service from Heathrow. Furthermore,

4256-580: The Delta to launch the flight "within the year." Coinciding with these comments, it was reported in the Liberian press that a division of Lockheed Martin was to take over management of Robertsfield. On 5 September 2010, Delta launched once weekly flights between Atlanta and Monrovia; with a stop in Accra . In January 2011, Delta Air Lines increased flights to twice a week (Sundays and Wednesdays). By mid-2012, Delta operated

4368-676: The Ebola crisis back to four per week, similar to its pre-Ebola capacity. Robertsfield's small, single-story terminals, in use since the end of the Civil War, were often overcrowded and did not conform to modern aviation standards, nor meet with the requirements set by the ICAO . In addition, the poor condition of RIA's single runway had been recognized as inadequate since at least 2012, when an Air France flight from Paris suffered significant damage to its landing gear, brakes and hydraulic systems during an arrival on

4480-482: The Government agreed to accord preferential status to BCal's worldwide scheduled ambitions, especially in the award of additional licences to operate scheduled services on major domestic and international trunk routes. The Government hoped that putting BCal's requirements ahead of other UK-based independent airlines' rival scheduled ambitions would help the new "Second Force" develop into a fully fledged, major international scheduled airline, thereby enabling it to achieve

4592-671: The Government agreed to license BCal to operate non-stop scheduled services between London and Paris and to begin negotiations with the French authorities to secure reciprocal approval for BCal to be able to commence scheduled operations on what was then the busiest international air route in Europe. BCal moreover received Government assurances that it would be designated as the UK's sole flag carrier on all routes transferred to it and that it would be assisted in obtaining traffic rights for additional, selected scheduled routes where it wished to compete with

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4704-511: The IATA Airline Coding Directory. IATA provides codes for airport handling entities, and for certain railway stations. Alphabetical lists of airports sorted by IATA code are available. A list of railway station codes , shared in agreements between airlines and rail lines such as Amtrak , SNCF , and Deutsche Bahn , is available. However, many railway administrations have their own list of codes for their stations, such as

4816-513: The Liberia Airport Authority announced that commercial airline operations were not expected to move into the new building before the end of 2018. President George Weah re-dedicated the new terminal in a ceremony on July 24, 2019, and passenger flights began limited use of the new facilities thereafter, although the two passenger jet bridges were not initially operational. The new terminal was fully operational by September 2019, including

4928-621: The Liberian government in support the rehabilitation project at the RIA. This contract was finalised in February 2015. Construction commenced in a formal groundbreaking ceremony held in September 2016. The new two-story terminal was officially dedicated by President Sirleaf in December 2017, although the building would not be commissioned and put into actual passenger use for another 18 months. In September 2018,

5040-451: The Seventies in 1969. and a subsequent White paper from the government The report recommended the creation of a "Second Force", private sector carrier to take on the state-owned corporations — British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) — by providing competing domestic and international scheduled services on trunk routes. The government rejected

5152-468: The U.S. For example, several airports in Alaska have scheduled commercial service, such as Stebbins and Nanwalek , which use FAA codes instead of ICAO codes. Thus, neither system completely includes all airports with scheduled service. Some airports are identified in colloquial speech by their IATA code. Examples include LAX and JFK . British Caledonian Airways British Caledonian ( BCal )

5264-453: The US completely to itself for the first three years of operation, which most airline industry analysts reckon is sufficiently long for a brand-new scheduled air service to become profitable. At British insistence, Bermuda II furthermore contained clauses that made it illegal for any airline operating scheduled flights between the UK and the US to resort to predatory pricing or capacity dumping. Air fares were only approved if they reflected

5376-765: The United Nations, with a VIP facility adjacent to the original, unused terminal. After the end of the civil war in 2003, commercial air service was slow to return to Liberia, and only gathered momentum after the inauguration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in January 2006. Royal Air Maroc started flights to Mohamed V International Airport in November 2007, and Virgin Nigeria added Monrovia to its network, from Lagos via Accra twice per week, in October 2008. Also in October 2008 U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines announced that, as part of

5488-481: The United States, because "Y" was seldom used in the United States, Canada simply used the weather station codes for its airports, changing the "Y" to a "Z" if it conflicted with an airport code already in use. The result is that most major Canadian airport codes start with "Y" followed by two letters in the city's name (for example, YOW for O tta w a , YWG for W innipe g , YYC for C algar y , or YVR for V ancouve r ), whereas other Canadian airports append

5600-468: The West in retaliation for its support of Israel during that war. This meant that the newly merged corporation's original revenue and profit projections were far too optimistic. During that time, BA began exerting pressure on the Government, at the time its sole owner as well as the regulator for all UK airlines, to curtail the activities of its independent competitors generally and of the "Second Force" in particular. The difficult operating environment at

5712-475: The actual cost of providing these services. Similarly, capacity increases were sanctioned on a reciprocal basis only. The reason for insisting on the inclusion of these provisions in the Bermuda II agreement was to prevent the much bigger, better financed and commercially far more aggressive US carriers from undercutting BCal with loss-leading fares cross-subsidised with profits those carriers' vast domestic networks generated, as well as to stop them from marginalising

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5824-579: The airline as well as to sell maintenance, training and management expertise to third parties. BCal also owned two package holiday companies as well as several hotels in Spain and Sierra Leone . BCal also inherited BUA's minority stakes in Gambia Airways , Sierra Leone Airways and Uganda Aviation Services. The airline's formation followed publication of the Edwards report entitled British Air Transport in

5936-420: The airline to replace the one-stop scheduled service via Nairobi to Lusaka with non-stop flights. During 1976, BCal's recovery continued, leading to the introduction of a new scheduled route to Algiers and the reinstatement of scheduled services to Tunis. It also led to BCal's decision to replace the two daily Gatwick—Manchester round-trips BIA had operated with turboprops with a BCal One-Eleven service from

6048-427: The airline's chief executive in addition to continuing in his role as chairman of a reconstituted board , and the transfer of all aircraft leasing , purchase and sale activities to a new subsidiary. British Caledonian Aircraft Trading was the name of the company that succeeded Caledonian Airways Equipment Holdings, Caledonian Airways (Leasing) and other related interests. It became one of the most profitable parts of

6160-440: The airport itself instead of the city it serves, while another code is reserved which refers to the city itself which can be used to search for flights to any of its airports. For instance: Or using a code for the city in one of the major airports and then assigning another code to another airport: When different cities with the same name each have an airport, they need to be assigned different codes. Examples include: Sometimes,

6272-418: The airport's former name, such as Orlando International Airport 's MCO (for Mc C o y Air Force Base), or Chicago's O'Hare International Airport , which is coded ORD for its original name: Or char d Field. In rare cases, the code comes from the airport's unofficial name, such as Kahului Airport 's OGG (for local aviation pioneer Jimmy H ogg ). In large metropolitan areas, airport codes are often named after

6384-472: The beginning of the 1975 summer timetable period was the high price of jet fuel , which had made BCal's own jet aircraft operations uneconomic. Even during this period of severe retrenchment, BCal continued launching scheduled services to new destinations. Dakar joined the airline's network on 1 November 1974, followed by Kinshasa on 1 April 1975. As a result of the "success" of Plan "S", BCal's fortunes quickly recovered. The airline operation itself made

6496-499: The business. In addition to withdrawing from the prestigious long-haul routes to New York and Los Angeles after only 18 months, other specific measures the airline took at the time to ensure its survival included dropping all scheduled flights to Belfast , Copenhagen, Gibraltar , Ibiza , Málaga , Palma de Mallorca and Tunis , indefinitely suspending scheduled services on the Glasgow— Southampton route as well as cutting

6608-491: The code SHA, while the newer Shanghai–Pudong adopted PVG. The opposite was true for Berlin : the airport Berlin–Tegel used the code TXL, while its smaller counterpart Berlin–Schönefeld used SXF; the Berlin Brandenburg Airport has the airport code BER, which is also part of its branding. The airports of Hamburg (HAM) and Hannover (HAJ) are less than 100 nautical miles (190 km) apart and therefore share

6720-537: The corporations, including the lucrative London— New York and London— Los Angeles routes. Another important concession by the Government designed to improve the competitiveness of the "Second Force" was to permit it to provide a first class cabin on its East African routes. (BUA, from whom BCal inherited these routes, had been prevented from offering a first class on its East African routes. To compensate for this loss of competitiveness, Sir Freddie Laker , BUA's managing director from 1960 to 1965, had come up with

6832-861: The critical mass to challenge the corporations' near-monopoly among UK-based scheduled airlines. The Central London air terminal at Victoria Station in London's West End , which the "Second Force" inherited from BUA as well, allowed passengers to complete all check-in formalities, including dropping off their hold luggage, before boarding their train to the airport. BCal also had a Gatwick airside lounge for its premium passengers, which it named Clansmen Lounge . BCal commenced scheduled operations from Gatwick to Nigeria ( Lagos and Kano ) and Ghana ( Accra ) in April 1971. Scheduled services from Gatwick to Tripoli began in July 1971. On each of these routes BCal replaced BOAC as

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6944-473: The designated UK flag carrier. On 1 November 1971, BCal started scheduled flights between London Gatwick and Paris Le Bourget Airport , where it replaced BEA's London Heathrow —Paris Le Bourget service and competed with that airline's Heathrow— Paris Orly Airport service. This was the first time since the 1930s that an independent airline commenced a scheduled service on that trunk route. BCal ended its 1970/71 financial year to 30 September 1971 with

7056-514: The downturn in air travel across West Africa due to Ebola. The first airline to return service to Robertsfield was Air Côte d'Ivoire, in October 2014. Kenya Airways returned thereafter, resuming its Nairobi-Accra-Monrovia flights in January 2015 after the Kenyan Ministry of Health lifted its restrictions. In September 2015, Brussels Airlines brought back more frequencies to its Monrovia service, doubling weekly flights from its twice-weekly low during

7168-874: The end. Examples include: A lot of minor airfields without scheduled passenger traffic have ICAO codes but not IATA codes, since the four letter codes allow more number of codes, and IATA codes are mainly used for passenger services such as tickets, and ICAO codes by pilots. In the US, such airfields use FAA codes instead of ICAO. There are airports with scheduled service for which there are ICAO codes but not IATA codes, such as Nkhotakota Airport/Tangole Airport in Malawi or Chōfu Airport in Tokyo, Japan. There are also several minor airports in Russia (e.g., Omsukchan Airport ) which lack IATA codes and instead use internal Russian codes for booking. Flights to these airports cannot be booked through

7280-567: The established competition was operating widebodied aircraft , such as the Boeing 747 "jumbo jet". It was thought that the aircraft's widebody style interiors would leave passengers with the impression that BCal was operating widebodied aircraft when in fact it was not. During that time, BCal placed an order with the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) for two new One-Eleven 500s and acquired additional second-hand examples. At

7392-557: The first three letters of the city in which it is located, for instance: The code may also be a combination of the letters in its name, such as: Sometimes the airport code reflects pronunciation, rather than spelling, namely: For many reasons, some airport codes do not fit the normal scheme described above. Some airports, for example, cross several municipalities or regions, and therefore, use codes derived from some of their letters, resulting in: Other airports—particularly those serving cities with multiple airports—have codes derived from

7504-474: The following format: Most large airports in Canada have codes that begin with the letter "Y", although not all "Y" codes are Canadian (for example, YUM for Yuma, Arizona , and YNT for Yantai , China), and not all Canadian airports start with the letter "Y" (for example, ZBF for Bathurst, New Brunswick ). Many Canadian airports have a code that starts with W, X or Z, but none of these are major airports. When

7616-593: The form of " YYZ ", a song by the rock band Rush , which utilizes the Morse code signal as a musical motif. Some airports have started using their IATA codes as brand names , such as Calgary International Airport (YYC) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR). Numerous New Zealand airports use codes that contain the letter Z, to distinguish them from similar airport names in other countries. Examples include HLZ for Hamilton , ZQN for Queenstown , and WSZ for Westport . Predominantly, airport codes are named after

7728-474: The idea of designing a cargo door to be installed on the left-hand side of the forward fuselage of that airline's long-haul VC10s , where the first class cabin was normally located. This modification permitted the carriage of additional freight instead of first class passengers on the East African routes.) In addition, BCal became the Government's "chosen instrument of the private sector". This meant that

7840-470: The incumbent flag carriers' established services from Heathrow. The creation of British Airways (BA) as a result of the 1974 BEA-BOAC merger came against the background of the first global oil crisis in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War , which led to the quadrupling of the price of a barrel of oil as a consequence of the decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boycott

7952-482: The international air booking systems or have international luggage transferred there, and thus, they are booked instead through the airline or a domestic booking system. Several heliports in Greenland have 3-letter codes used internally which might be IATA codes for airports in faraway countries. There are several airports with scheduled service that have not been assigned ICAO codes that do have IATA codes, especially in

8064-546: The jet bridges and the new business class lounge. The following airlines offer scheduled passenger flights at Roberts International Airport : [REDACTED] Media related to Roberts International Airport at Wikimedia Commons IATA airport code The assignment of these codes is governed by IATA Resolution 763, and it is administered by the IATA's headquarters in Montreal , Canada. The codes are published semi-annually in

8176-463: The late 1970s and into the early 1980s, the airport became Pan Am 's principal African hub, with a nonstop Boeing 747 service from New York JFK connecting at Robertsfield to such destinations as Dakar , Accra , Abidjan , Lagos , and Conakry , among others, and continuing on to Nairobi and even at times Johannesburg , so that for many years virtually every Pan Am passenger to Africa passed through Robertsfield. Pan Am's presence diminished during

8288-468: The main terminal building suffered major damage, and remains vacant and unenclosed. Currently, the terminal facilities consist of two passenger buildings, one for departures by most commercial carriers and all arrivals, and a second, Terminal B, opened in March 2012, and in its first two years was reserved exclusively for departures by Air France and Delta Air Lines . Other airside buildings are primarily used by

8400-537: The mid-1970s this service consisted of a weekly flight via Düsseldorf and Madrid and a second weekly flight via Zürich , then onward to South America: Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Santiago de Chile. Similarly, VARIG employed RIA as a stop on its flights between Brazil and Europe, which began in the mid-1960s and lasted at least until the mid-1970s, with various routings including Rio de Janeiro -Monrovia-Rome and Rio-Monrovia-Madrid-Rome. VARIG's Flight between Rome and Rio crashed at Monrovia in March 1967, and remains

8512-680: The mid-1980s combined with the airline's inability to grow sufficiently to reach a viable size put it at serious risk of collapse. British Caledonian began looking for a merger partner to improve its competitive position. In December 1987, British Airways (BA) bought the airline. The Caledonian name was used to rebrand BA's Gatwick-based subsidiary British Airtours as Caledonian Airways . On St. Andrew's Day (30 November) in 1970, Caledonian Airways acquired British United Airways (BUA) from British and Commonwealth (B&C) for £ 6.9 million. Caledonian Airways also purchased three new BAC One-Eleven 500 aircraft, which B&C had leased to BUA, for

8624-412: The most destinations from Robertsfield of any airline, with same-plane service to Lagos, Douala and Dakar. Also in early 2014, Air Côte d'Ivoire added a service from Abidjan to Freetown via Roberts International. A decline in global prices for commodities such as gold, iron ore and oil began in 2013 and 2014, causing an immediate slowdown of Liberia's extractive-dependent economy, which in turn pressured

8736-612: The name of the airport itself, for instance: This is also true with some cities with a single airport (even if there is more than one airport in the metropolitan area of said city), such as BDL for Hartford, Connecticut 's B ra dl ey International Airport or Baltimore's BWI, for B altimore/ W ashington I nternational Airport ; however, the latter also serves Washington, D.C. , alongside Dulles International Airport (IAD, for I nternational A irport D ulles) and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA, for D istrict of C olumbia A irport). The code also sometimes comes from

8848-423: The network's reach and improve its connectivity, BCal agreed to host Dan-Air 's new, twice daily Gatwick—Newcastle flights, which began on 20 April 1974, in its computer reservation system (CRS) as part of a combined marketing effort. June 1974 saw the launch of BCal's non-stop Gatwick— Brussels scheduled route, the third European trunk route on which the airline operated scheduled services in competition with

8960-489: The new air services agreement a clause stating that Gatwick — rather than Heathrow — was to be nominated as the designated US flag carrier's London gateway airport whenever BCal was going to be the sole designated UK flag carrier on the same route. This clause was meant to support the growth of BCal's scheduled operation at Gatwick as well as to redress the competitive imbalance between it and its much bigger, more powerful rivals. The UK side furthermore succeeded in negotiating

9072-578: The new terminal project through a 22-month, $ 49.8m concessional loan, whereas the runway refurbishment was financed by $ 20m from the Saudi Fund for Development, $ 10m from the Arab Bank for Economic Development for Africa, and $ 3m from the Government of Liberia. In November 2014, the European Investment Bank (EIB) agreed to provide a $ 27.3m (~$ 34.6 million in 2023) loan over a period of 20 years to

9184-534: The number of frequencies on the Gatwick—Glasgow and Gatwick—Edinburgh routes from six to four daily round trips. Two surplus aircraft were leased out to Air Malta and Austrian Airlines respectively for the duration of the 1975 summer timetable period. Another aircraft was stationed at West Berlin 's Tegel Airport during the month of July of that year to fulfill a short-term charter contract to carry Turkish migrant workers to and from Istanbul on behalf of

9296-416: The number of scheduled passengers carried each year and the total yearly scheduled capacity measured in passenger kilometres, throughout its 17-year existence.) The newly created company's output measured in available capacity tonne kilometres was greater than that of some of the smaller, contemporary European flag carriers , such as Aer Lingus , Air India , Sabena , or Swissair . By that measure, BCal

9408-416: The one they are located in: Other airport codes are of obscure origin, and each has its own peculiarities: In Asia, codes that do not correspond with their city's names include Niigata 's KIJ , Nanchang 's KHN and Pyongyang 's FNJ . EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg , which serves three countries, has three airport codes: BSL, MLH, EAP. Some cities have a name in their respective language which

9520-481: The patched and potholed asphalt, an incident which cost as much as half a million dollars to the airline's plane and was cited as a contributing factor to the airline's decision to end service to Liberia . The renovation project launched in 2018 completely overhauled nearly every aspect of the airport to meet international civil aviation regulations and allow for expanded passenger and cargo operations. The previous 57,000-square-metre (610,000 sq ft) tarmac apron

9632-467: The proposed transfer of routes from BOAC and BEA to the Second Force, and held that dual designation on a route should be open to any British independent. The new airline established its headquarters and operational base at Gatwick Airport and Sir Adam Thomson, one of the five co-founders as well as one of the main shareholders of Caledonian Airways, became its chairman and managing director . BCal

9744-500: The route has diminished in 2012 with the end of Air Mali 's unsuccessful Bamako -Monrovia-Accra service and the demise of Air Nigeria , which for several years had flown from Lagos to Monrovia via Accra five times per week. In October 2012, start-up airline Gambia Bird commenced twice-weekly non-stop services between Banjul and Robertsfield with an Airbus A319 . This service was later expanded to include multi-week flights to Accra and Freetown, and by mid-2014 Gambia Bird had offered

9856-501: The same first and middle letters, indicating that this rule might be followed only in Germany. Many cities retain historical names in their airport codes, even after having undergone an official name/spelling/transliteration change: Some airport codes are based on previous names associated with a present airport, often with a military heritage. These include: Some airports are named for an administrative division or nearby city, rather than

9968-516: The same month that the last Delta jet departed Liberia, most scheduled flights, including those of British Airways , Kenya Airways , Air Côte d'Ivoire , Arik Air , and Gambia Bird were suspended due to the rapidly-spreading Ebola outbreak. Royal Air Maroc and Brussels Airlines both remained flying through the crisis, albeit with reduced schedules. British Airways and Delta have not resumed service to Monrovia since that time. Gambia Bird subsequently ceased operations entirely, in large part because of

10080-424: The same time, the airline disposed of some of its 707s, VC10s and One-Eleven 200s . These included the original pair of 399C series 707 aircraft that had been delivered to Caledonian Airways direct from the manufacturer in 1967/68. BCal inaugurated its two transatlantic flagship services from London Gatwick to John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) on 1 April 1973, followed by Gatwick — Los Angeles International

10192-419: The sole British flag carrier to the entire South American mainland by taking over the former BA routes to Colombia , Peru and Venezuela . The net losses of revenues was about equal for the two airlines. The Government's new "spheres of influence" aviation policy confined BCal's long-haul scheduled operations to two continents — Africa and South America. The loss of BCal's East African routes enabled

10304-418: The start of the 1976–77 winter timetable period. This equipment change was accompanied by the addition of a third daily frequency. BCal ended its 1975/76 financial year with a healthy profit of £5.6 million. In July 1976, Edmund Dell , the then new Secretary of State for Trade , renounced the original Bermuda air services agreement of 1946 and initiated bilateral negotiations with his US counterparts on

10416-497: The station code of Malton, Mississauga , where it is located). YUL is used for Montréal–Trudeau (UL was the ID code for the beacon in the city of Kirkland , now the location of Montréal–Trudeau). While these codes make it difficult for the public to associate them with a particular Canadian city, some codes have become popular in usage despite their cryptic nature, particularly at the largest airports. Toronto's code has entered pop culture in

10528-449: The structure of the airport's original terminal, which had been destroyed during the Civil War and sat burnt-out and vacant for nearly 15 years. It is designed to handle 320,000 passengers per year. The ground floor features a departures hall with check-in desks and security screening, and an arrivals hall baggage handling, baggage claim with international-standard luggage carousels as well as a waiting area to greet passengers. The upper level

10640-441: The suspension of the transatlantic "flagship" services, of which Flight International said the fuel crisis was a "heaven-sent excuse" to back out of a failure. the immediate withdrawal and subsequent disposal of the remaining VC10 long-haul aircraft, the grounding of a number of short-haul aircraft as well 827 redundancies out of the company's 5,673 staff. It also resulted in organisational changes that saw Adam Thomson become

10752-412: The time did not affect BA alone. In fact, the major scheduled airlines were all losing enormous amounts of money at the time. The sudden spike in the oil price caused a major recession during the second half of 1974 as well as the first half of 1975, with much reduced demand for air travel. This in turn led to the collapse of a number of prominent travel companies and their associated airlines — most notably

10864-509: The two predecessors of Investors in Industry, Kleinwort Benson , the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Schroders . (Airways Interests (Thomson), which had been set up at Caledonian's inception a decade earlier as an investment vehicle for that airline's founders to enable them to maintain control, was renamed Caledonian Airways Ltd and became the new group holding company .) Before adopting

10976-504: The two-letter code of the radio beacons that were the closest to the actual airport, such as YQX in Gander or YXS in Prince George . Four of the ten provincial capital airports in Canada have ended up with codes beginning with YY, including: Canada's largest airport is YYZ for Toronto Pearson (as YTZ was already allocated to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport , the airport was given

11088-481: The viability of the many new intercontinental services from Robertsfield. The first major blow to the airport's renaissance came in late June 2014, when Air France scrapped its flight to Liberia, citing lack of profitability. An even bigger loss to the airport in terms of capacity, connectivity and prestige came when Delta Air Lines announced that, after nearly four years of service, it would cease flights to Monrovia on 31 August 2014 due to weak passenger demand. Within

11200-503: The worst aviation accident in Liberia to this day. As with Pan Am, several African flag carriers utilized Robertsfield as a waystation on transatlantic routes. As early as 1966, Nigeria Airways began a codeshare cooperation on Pan Am's flights to New York-JFK from Lagos via Monrovia, and in later decades Monrovia remained a stop on its weekly services to New York, at most times utilizing its own McDonnell Douglas DC-10 . This also included for

11312-747: Was a full member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) at its inception as a result of inheriting BUA's membership. This included membership of IATA's trade association as well as participation in tariff co-ordination with other member airlines in the organisation's annual traffic conferences. BCal also had its own air freight terminal at Heathrow BCal inherited from its predecessors 31 jet aircraft: 11 long-haul aircraft (seven ex-Caledonian Boeing 707s and four ex-BUA Vickers VC10 ) and 20 short-haul planes (eight ex-BUA and four ex-Caledonian BAC One-Eleven 500s and eight ex-BUA BAC One-Eleven 200s ). The issued share capital

11424-516: Was a private independent airline in the United Kingdom that operated from 1970 until it merged with British Airways in 1988. It operated primarily from London Gatwick Airport in south-east England. BCal was formed by the merger of Caledonian Airways and British United Airways (BUA). It was created as an alternative to the British government-controlled corporation airlines and was described as

11536-439: Was about the same size as Australia 's flag carrier Qantas . The institutional investors that had helped Sir Adam Thomson and John de la Haye launch Caledonian Airways back in 1961 were also among the shareholders of the newly constituted airline. They included The Automobile Association (AA), Great Universal Stores (GUS), Hogarth Shipping, Lyle Shipping , Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation (ICFC) — one of

11648-429: Was also the year BCal introduced the UK's first-ever " no frills " type service on the two main domestic trunk routes linking London and Scotland. The airline introduced simultaneous night-time departures from Gatwick, Glasgow and Edinburgh, resulting in an overall frequency increase to six daily round-trips on each route. The company charged a very low £5 one-way fare on these night-time services, which were marketed under

11760-568: Was continued throughout the airline's 17-year existence. Some BCal aircraft were also allocated out-of-sequence registrations. (For instance, G-BCAL was allocated to one of the Boeing 707s, G-CLAN and G-SCOT were the registrations of the Piper Navajo Chieftains , G-DCIO was the registration of the eighth DC-10 and G-HUGE was the Boeing 747 Combi registration ) The "Second Force" inherited BUA's extensive network of scheduled routes serving

11872-438: Was contracted to British Island Airways (BIA), BUIA's successor, which operated two daily return trips using its Handley Page Dart Herald turboprops . On 20 March 1974, BCal switched its Gatwick—Paris services to the then brand-new Charles de Gaulle Airport in the northern Paris suburb of Roissy-en-France , thus becoming the first scheduled carrier to operate between London and the new Paris airport. To further extend

11984-516: Was expanded to 85,000 square metres (910,000 sq ft). New car parking facilities and access roads were added to the landside area, while water supply sewage treatment, electrical and communication systems were also upgraded, adding new fire-fighting equipment and other safety systems, as well as mobile equipment including forklifts, ambulances, conveyor belt loaders, in addition to passenger stairs and buses for remote stand deplaning. The new 5,000 m two-level main passenger facility salvaged

12096-453: Was for many years the longest runway in Africa. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had lunch with President Edwin J. Barclay at Roberts Field during his visit to Liberia in January 1943. From 1943 to the end of World War II in 1945, Roberts Field Airport, as it was then known, served as an alternative base for a contingent of 26 Squadron SAAF which flew Vickers Wellington bombers on anti-submarine (U-Boat) and convoy escort patrols over

12208-518: Was increasing the UK market share of the traffic. As a result, BA and BCal were no longer permitted to run competing scheduled services on long-haul routes, and BCal had to withdraw from the East African routes inherited from BUA as well as from the London—New York and London—Los Angeles routes. BCal lost its licences to New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Toronto – routes it had stopped running in 1974. It gained Lusaka (Zambia) In return, BCal became

12320-531: Was originally used to prefix all Caledonian Airways flight numbers and continued to prefix flight numbers allocated to transatlantic charter flights until 31 March 1973 – with the BR airline designator it had inherited from BUA at the time of its formation. This resulted in exclusive use of the BR designator as a prefix for all BCal flight numbers. In 1973, BCal also inaugurated its fourth scheduled domestic trunk route between London Gatwick and Manchester . The new service

12432-662: Was reported widely that the carrier had been denied permission by the Transportation Security Administration due to a lack of acceptable security standards at Robertsfield. Neither Delta nor the TSA issued any further explanation. However, Cynthia B. Nash, a prominent Atlanta businesswoman, stated in an interview coinciding with her appointment as Liberia's Honorary Consul in August 2009 that she expected Roberts International to upgrade its security to meet TSA standards and for

12544-423: Was £12 million — more than that of any other wholly private, British independent airline at the time — and its workforce numbered 4,400. This made BCal the UK's foremost independent airline of the time. Although Dan-Air and Britannia Airways exceeded BCal's total annual passenger numbers from 1975, BCal maintained its position as Britain's leading independent international scheduled airline, in terms of both

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