also called metropolitan area code · IATA city code
A code representing a whole city that may cover several airports at once in a search.
A city code stands for a whole city in a flight search, and it can sweep in several airports at once. That makes it different from an airport code, which points at one specific field. Searching the city version shows you every airport serving that place, which helps where a city has more than one.
You are flying to London and search the city code rather than one airport. The results pull in every London field at once, so you spot a cheaper fare into an airport you would have missed if you had only searched the big one you knew by name.
Searching a city code surfaces all its airports, useful where one metro has multiple fields.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
An IATA airport code is the three-letter code for one specific airport, the kind printed on your luggage tag.
A city code represents a whole city and can cover several airports at once in a search, which is why searching one can return flights to more than one airport.
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