What airport is SCL?

Why the code is SCL

SantiagoChiLe.

This is the explanation in general circulation and it is very likely right, but no primary document has been published that settles it. Treated as an account rather than a fact.

The airport

IATA code

SCL

ICAO code

SCEL

Airport

Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport

City

Santiago, Chile

Code origin

The usual account, unverified

Santiago sits in a basin between the Andes and the coastal range, and the approach over the mountains on a clear day is one of the more spectacular in commercial aviation. Chile's ICAO prefix SC produces the near-palindrome SCEL.

The other code, SCEL

Every airport has two codes. The three-letter IATA code, SCL, is the one on your boarding pass and your luggage tag, and it is assigned for commercial use. The four-letter ICAO code, SCEL, 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 SCEL looks nothing like SCL.