What airport is MCO?
Why the code is MCO
McCoy Air Force Base, the Strategic Air Command base the civil airport was built alongside.
The airport authority or a contemporaneous record states this directly.
The airport
- IATA code
- MCO
- ICAO code
- KMCO
- Airport
- Orlando International Airport
- City
- Orlando, United States
- Opened
- 1981
- Code origin
- Documented
The base was named for Michael McCoy, a colonel who died in a B-47 crash nearby in 1957. The Air Force left in 1975, the civil terminal opened in 1981, and the code outlived the base by decades. Travellers routinely assume MCO is a typo for ORL — which is a different, much smaller Orlando airport that still exists.
Codes people book by mistake
| Code | What it actually is |
|---|---|
| ORL | Orlando Executive, a general-aviation field close to downtown. Not where any airline will take you. |
| SFB | Orlando Sanford International, 30 miles north, used by low-cost and charter carriers. A different airport entirely. |
The other code, KMCO
Every airport has two codes. The three-letter IATA code, MCO, is the one on your boarding pass and your luggage tag, and it is assigned for commercial use. The four-letter ICAO code, KMCO, 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 KMCO looks nothing like MCO.
Common questions
- What airport is MCO?
- Orlando International Airport, in Orlando, United States.
- Why is Orlando's airport called MCO?
- McCoy Air Force Base, the Strategic Air Command base the civil airport was built alongside.
- What is the difference between MCO and KMCO?
- MCO is the IATA code, used commercially — tickets, timetables, luggage tags. KMCO is the ICAO code, used operationally by pilots and air traffic control, and assigned geographically by region.
- Is MCO the same as ORL?
- No. ORL is orlando Executive, a general-aviation field close to downtown. Not where any airline will take you.
Related pages
- United States Capital, area, population and currency
- The flag of United States Colours, symbols and lookalikes
- Airport codes in United States 32 here
- What airport is JFK? John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York
- What airport is LAX? Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles
- What airport is ORD? O'Hare International Airport, Chicago
- What airport is ATL? Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta
- What airport is DFW? Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Dallas
- What airport is EWR? Newark Liberty International Airport, Newark
- What airport is SFO? San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco
- What airport is LGA? LaGuardia Airport, New York
Sources
- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place