Thanks to a reminder from my friend Ming (in the comments), I just realized that there are actually some interesting waypoints named after car brands.

On SkyVector, you can easily find: PRIUS (Toyota Prius), LEXUS (Toyota Lexus), CHERY (A discontinued Nissan model), BUICK (GM Buick), ACORD (Honda Accord), MAZDA (Mazda), FREED (Honda FREED), DODGE (Chrysler Dodge), SOARA (Toyota Soarer).

They are distributed around the perimeter of the main island of Okinawa. It feels like the aviation authorities intentionally used car brands to define the waypoints in this region.

Also, in the chart below, you can see that waypoints like MAZDA, BUICK, and CHERY play important roles in Departure procedures. Moreover, the transition procedure names are even named after CHERY and DODGE– “CHERY NORTH TRANSITION”, “CHERY SOUTH TRANSITION”, “DODGE TRANSITION”.

It’s funny just to imagine it. For example, if today’s flight plan is “After takeoff, fly to Mazda first, then pass through Dodge”, hehe.

Let’s look at another interesting example. Airway A593 connects Japan and China. Last year, when I flew from Tokyo to Shanghai on flight NH1259, we took this route. (The segment from AKARA to CORRIDOR is also called the AKARA Fukue Corridor).

Looking at the series of waypoints on Airway A593 in the map above: GOMAR, AZUKI, POTET, ONIKU, NIRAT, LAMEN. These words are neither English nor Chinese, and most people would have no idea what they refer to.

However, if you understand Japanese, you will immediately know their meanings: GOMAR Sesame AZUKI Red Bean POTET Potato ONIKU Meat NIRAT Garlic Chives LAMEN Ramen It turns out that if you fly to China, you just need to eat your way through the journey, hehe.

I really don’t know what rules the Japanese aviation authorities follow to define waypoints. I’ll make a bold guess: is it because flying from Japan to China immediately brings to mind delicious Chinese cuisine, so the staff couldn’t help but write food names into them?

Update: Adding a supplement from the Chinese Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP).