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Wikipedia lists N8 at the IATA code for National Cargo Airlines (ICAO NCR), a regional airline based in Orlando, Florida. AirlineCodes.info and other sources list N8 as the code for Fika Salaama (ICAO HGK), which is based in Uganda. Both are currently in operation. What on earth is going on here?

Scott Deerwester
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2 Answers2

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IATA issues duplicate airline codes to regional airlines where the codes are not likely to overlap, from Wikipedia:

Controlled duplicates are issued to regional airlines whose destinations are not likely to overlap, so that the same code is shared by two airlines.

This happens because IATA uses a 2-letter code for for airlines which has a limited range of available codes. Since NCA doesn't operate a passenger service in the same region as Fika Salaama, it would be very unlikely to confuse the two.

Ron Beyer
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  • The question is about a cargo airline. Can it ever occur that one and the same IATA code is given to 2 different passenger airlines (e. g. one small American airline, which flies to 2 and a half cities in the US, and a small Russian airline, which does the same in Russia)? In this case they are not likely to overlap, but if someone uses the IATA code as an airline identificator in a database they are screwed... – Glory to Russia Feb 28 '17 at 08:25
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    @DP_ It would be foolish to use the IATA code as an identifier in a database, since many airlines don't even have one. Wikipedia says nothing about the airlines not carrying passengers and, for example, I9 is used by both IndiGo (a large Indian domestic low-cost carrier with more than 100 A320s in its fleet) and Air Italy (which owns 15 passenger 737s and 767s and now flies under the Meridiana brand). – David Richerby Feb 28 '17 at 09:15
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    @DP_ NCA also has a scheduled passenger service. – Ron Beyer Feb 28 '17 at 12:30
  • @DavidRicherby FWIW, according to IATA's own database, I9 is indeed Air Italy, but Indigo is 6E – Pondlife Feb 28 '17 at 15:19
  • @Pondlife I see the problem: there are airlines Indigo (lower-case g, in the US and now defunct) and IndiGo (upper-case G, in India). Wikipedia's IATA code page linked small-g-Indigo to Indigo (airline), which redirects to big-G-IndiGo and I'd not noticed the difference. Now fixed. – David Richerby Feb 28 '17 at 15:26
  • @DavidRicherby I actually meant that IndiGo (the Indian airline) is 6E. If you look at the IATA DB, it lists 6E as "Interglobe Aviation Ltd. dba Indigo". InterGlobe set up IndiGo, so I'm fairly sure that's the Indian one. In fact, I suspect that Indigo was 6E, closed down, and IATA reassigned the code to IndiGo. I say that because the actual code is 6E, and Wikipedia says the indicates a controlled duplicate, following a delisting. Moral of the story: capital letters matter (even IATA has them wrong). – Pondlife Feb 28 '17 at 15:53
  • @Pondlife It's all too confusing. But I agree that Indian-IndiGo=6E; an incorrect link on Wikipedia caused me to confuse that with American-Indigo. – David Richerby Feb 28 '17 at 15:59
  • @DavidRicherby If I wanted to find out all IATA codes assigned to more than one airline, what's the starting point? Background: I happen to know some organization (regional player), which assumes the uniqueness of IATA codes. I want to find out, how bad the problem can become. – Glory to Russia Mar 02 '17 at 11:42
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If you check IATA's own code database, N8 is used for only one airline: National Air Cargo Group, Inc., doing business as National Airlines.

The same search tool says that Fika Salaama doesn't have an assigned IATA code. I'm curious how you know that it's in operation; Google can't find any direct information on it, and third-party aviation sites come up with automatically generated pages. As we've seen here before, there's a lot of incorrect - or at least outdated - information out there that doesn't always match what IATA's own database says.

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Pondlife
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