# Travel >> Transportation >> Air Travel

How to Find an Airline Code

Professionals from many industries use shortened codes and abbreviations when speaking about common words and phrases in their lines of work. This can be as simple as the staff at a local restaurant shortening the name of a common food item or as complex as the national emergency codes the military uses. Within the commercial aviation industry, airline staff and travel agents alike use two-digit codes to represent different airlines when speaking about them with one another.

Instructions

- 1
  Inspect your air ticket or boarding pass to locate the code for your airline. This code will appear next to your flight number, which is printed before the names of your origin and destination airports. For example, if you are taking American Airlines flight 151 from Barcelona to New York, you will find the code "AA 151" printed on your boarding documents.
- 2
  Find the code when shopping for a flight itinerary online. For example, if you're shopping flights from Melbourne to Adelaide, Australia, and want to find out the code for Virgin Blue Airways, click the "Get Flight Information" button to learn that the airline has a code of "DJ."
- 3
  Consult online resources to familiarize yourself with airline codes. The Airlines of the World website has a complete list.