Exactly I think that’s the point! Trying to make a strongly typed model, APIs and templates, etc… all while reality is making other plans

Thats when you ask the user to add another airport with the same name and -2 at the end. Add a "has moved" field!

Now you have to specify whether or not it’s moved during queries (and what if it moves again?) There’s probably a more elegant way I’m not thinking of, but standard created_at and updated_at fields would work: if a given date is <= the move date, it’s the original airport, else the new one. Rinse and repeat if it moves again.

The reassignment of a live IATA code between two airports was absolutely cluster fuck level.

This had never happened before.

Like, you don't even _change_ the IATA code of a live airport. To switch them was a huuuuuuuuuge assumption breaker for the industry.

The biggest falsehood programmers believe is “a data restriction or programmer difficulty will have any affect on management decisions”.