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The FAA changed the "Location Identifier" of Yuma International Airport to NYL from YUM effective June 5, 2008.
Obtain current NOTAMS and Weather for KNYL during flight planning.
The "location identifier" is the pilot's shorthand name for each airport. You can see this name printed on your baggage claim tickets, like PHX for Phoenix Sky Harbor, SLC for Salt Lake City or LAX for Las Angeles International. Every airport in the world has a "location identifier." When referring to the identifier internationally, i.e. in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) vernacular, it has four letters; the same three letters preceded by the letter "K"; i.e. KYUM.
Unfortunately, over time Yuma International Airport had been assigned two (2) separate location identifiers by two separate Federal Agencies.
Decades ago, the FAA assigned the three letters "YUM" to Yuma's Airport. More recently, the Department of the Navy, the current "owner" of the aerodrome, assigned three different letters, "NYL", as the identifier for "MCAS Yuma". As a courtesy, the Marines continued to enter all NOTAM and Weather information for both identifiers into the worldwide reporting systems. And because Yuma International remains a "shared-use" airfield, i.e. one shared by both military and civil aviation, the FAA never dropped the original KYUM identifier.
Instead the FAA gave the airport a dual name, not an uncommon practice. The airport is often identified as "MCAS Yuma/Yuma International Airport" and sometimes as "Yuma International Airport/MCAS Yuma."
But the underlying fact was still there. The airport had been assigned two different identifiers. It became a problem only recently when MCAS Yuma adopted new electronic systems for weather and NOTAM reporting. The new software allows input only to a single identifier. It is physically impossible for them to simultaneously maintain all the information on two separate identifiers.
MCAS and Airport staff investigated the problem and agreed the use of a single identifier is a must. In today's modern world of computers and software it would be impossible to maintain dual identifiers and try to mirror all associated airfield information. A software hiccup somewhere along the line could result in inaccurate information being distributed to pilots.
The Airport Authority and MCAS Yuma jointly concluded that the best way to solve this problem is for the FAA to retire the YUM identifier and to adopt the same NYL identifier that the Navy uses. Airport staff recently completed a review with the FAA and the FAA agreed to adopt the single NYL identifier.
Effective June 5, 2008 the FAA changed their flight information databases and publications so that NYL is the only recognized identifier for Yuma International Airport.
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