How Sruthy Saseendran Cracked a Guinness World Record for Airport Codes

By Sruthy Saseendran

Sruthy Saseendran, a Melbourne-based business analyst with roots in a small town near Trivandrum, Kerala, set a Guinness World Record for identifying the most airports in one minute using IATA codes, naming 95 airports in 60 seconds. The record sat in a category that did not previously exist, which made the achievement as much about persistence as about memory.

As The Indian Sun reported, that newness came with its own hurdle. Guinness initially rejected Sruthy's first three applications because the category was new, and the approval process stretched across roughly a year before the attempt could go ahead. Rather than treat the rejections as an endpoint, she worked through them until the record was recognised.

The preparation behind the number was substantial. Sruthy began memorising airport codes around 2023, at first recalling about 30 per minute, and practised for roughly 18 months, waking around 4:30am each day to train her recall. She pursued the record while facing personal and professional challenges, including job loss and family setbacks, and while balancing a full-time contract job and parenting.

With the record secured, Sruthy says she does not have plans to break another one. It is a measured note to end on from someone who spent a year and a half building toward a single minute, and who turned a self-set challenge into a recognised world first.