Meyer points out that in the lower 48, all ICAO codes actually start with a 'K', so the airport's full identifier is KMCI. It wasn't until commercial air service was moved from the downtown airport to the one in the Northland that the Mid-Continent International was re-named Kansas City International. Wheeler downtown airport, was the primary airport for Kansas City,' Meyer says. 'At that time, the Kansas City Municipal Airport, or what we call now the Charles B. That airport was called Mid-Continent International Airport, and received the official code of MCI.

'The airport and the airfield actually opened in the mid 1950s and was an overhaul base for Trans World Airlines,' Meyer says. Meyer says what we know today as Kansas City International Airport was assigned its code well before the three horseshoe-shaped terminals opened in 1972. In Colorado, the code for Denver International Airport is DEN, though people usually just call it DIA. In Orange County, California, for example, people refer to John Wayne Airport as JWA, even though the airport code is SNA. 'It's actually a very common occurrence that regional areas call their airports something different than the official IATA (International Air Transport Association) code or ICEO (International Civil Aviation Organization) code,' Meyer says. Not necessarily, says Justin Meyer, the deputy director of aviation at the Kansas City Aviation department.

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