Dangerous Identifiers
I enjoyed Elaine Kauh’s article, “Making Do, Part 2” back in the August 2019 issue. It accurately reflects the decisions— and sometimes the mistakes— we make trying to use our airplanes. The similarity of the Kennett, MO and Texarkana airport identifiers (KTKX and KTXK, respectively), while it may have been presented as a hypothetical complication in the article, is very real to us actually based in Kennett, MO. We frequently receive clearances to Texarkana, instead of Kennett, and ATC often questions our headings when en route direct Kennett. The farther away from home, the more often it happens.
We have attempted to get the FAA to assign Kennett a new identifier to address this problem, but so far, no luck. We can’t help but notice that both KKEN and KKNT are available. I wonder if you might consider a future article on the process that is involved in the naming, or in this case, the attempted renaming, of airports, navaids and waypoints.
