At One Place

What airport is BOM?

BOM is
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport
Mumbai, India

Why the code is BOM

BOMbay, the city's name until 1995.

The airport authority or a contemporaneous record states this directly.

The airport

IATA code
BOM
ICAO code
VABB
Airport
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport
City
Mumbai, India
Code origin
Documented

The city became Mumbai in 1995 and the code did not follow, for the same reason PEK is still Peking: an IATA code change ripples through every reservation system in the world. Mumbai's single main runway crosses its secondary one, so only one can be used at a time, which is why it is among the busiest single-runway operations anywhere.

The other code, VABB

Every airport has two codes. The three-letter IATA code, BOM, is the one on your boarding pass and your luggage tag, and it is assigned for commercial use. The four-letter ICAO code, VABB, is the one pilots and controllers use, and it is assigned geographically: the first letter or two identify the region, so every airport in the same part of the world shares a prefix. That is why VABB looks nothing like BOM.

Common questions

What airport is BOM?
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, in Mumbai, India.
Why is Mumbai's airport called BOM?
BOMbay, the city's name until 1995.
What is the difference between BOM and VABB?
BOM is the IATA code, used commercially — tickets, timetables, luggage tags. VABB is the ICAO code, used operationally by pilots and air traffic control, and assigned geographically by region.

Related pages

Sources

  1. OurAirports — OurAirports (Public domain)

How these figures are compiled and checked