Why AGP Instead of MLG? This is the Story of the Strange Code of Malaga Airport

While Madrid (MAD), Barcelona (BCN), Brussels (BRU), and many other cities have airport codes that extract the main letters from their name, the code for Málaga does not even remotely resemble its name, pardon the pun. Not even the most brilliant scientist or thinker could associate, without thousands of combinations, that the code AGP describes Málaga because, although there is logic to it, it is indeed very far-fetched. So much so that it is not the first time that foreigners flying to our city are surprised by the initials on their plane ticket. In Málaga, it seems that we have either gotten used to it, or we have resigned ourselves, but if there were ever complaints about the inaccurate definition of the city through this code, there was not much perseverance to change it.

Anyway, the story of Málaga being designated as AGP is as follows. When the International Air Transport Association (IATA) decided to name the airport of Málaga, it found that the letters that could be associated to form its code had already been used, for example in Malange (MLG), a city in Indonesia; or MAL belongs to Mangole, also in Indonesia, which, curiously, seems to have taken the lead in these matters. There are also other approaches already taken like MGA (Managua), or even MAG, which although it could also be very recognizable, is the airport code for Madang, a province in Papua New Guinea. There were other various combinations with possible letters for the Málaga code so the option left for IATA, according to experts consulted by this newspaper and airport sources, was to choose two letters from its name and add a third letter that was not the combination of any other airport in the world to avoid confusion. The first two letters of the code were the fourth and fifth letters of the city's name, A and G, and a third had to be added. Among thousands of possible variations, as they say, AGP was one of the few that met the criteria and was not taken by any other country or city.

There are urban legends that AGP stands for Aeropuerto Gran Picasso and there is even a more daring one that says it stands for Agripina. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much later, in June 2011, the airport in Málaga was renamed Málaga-Costa del Sol. Since then, the tourism sector primarily claims that since its name also includes the denomination Costa del Sol, for which Málaga is known worldwide, its airport code should be SOL, as journalist Pedro Luis Gómez reported in Horizontes Cercanos in May 2012. It seems that the claim, for now, has not been very successful.