Confirming my flight reservation

[tim]

Northwest Airlines agent: "And that's from Portland to Brussels, leaving at noon..."
me: "Did you say 'Brussels' or 'Bristol'?"
agent: "Well, I don't know, it just says 'BRS'. Which one is it supposed to be?"
me: "Bristol."
agent: "It says 'BRS', I assume that's Brussels."
me: "Can you check that it's Bristol?"
agent: "All it says is 'BRS'. But if you think it's Bristol, it's probably Bristol."

Maybe Northwest makes airport codes available to their workers on a need-to-know basis?

Comments

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that an agent would not have known that BRS=Bristol, but you'd expect them to know that Brussels=BRU.

[rbb]

Wait, does that mean you can change reality just by thinking? Because if so, I've got several things I'd like you to think.

[juli]

Which would be less stupid if it weren't for the fact that "BRS" isn't a logical abbreviation for either native name of Brussels (ignoring the fact that the 3-letter codes don't even in the US always correspond to the name of the airport — Kansas City International is MCI (people call it KCI locally due to confusion over this) because it was originally to be called Mid-Continent International Airport.) Another good reason to use ICAO codes, which make region and country mostly logical. BRU is EBBR and BRS is EGGD.

[tim]

Wait, "EGGD" is logical?

[juli]

Europe, Great Britain, ... I forget how it goes below that level.