Are there 5000+ companies with IATA (two-character) codes? From Wikipedia > List of Airlines


  There are around 5000 airlines with IATA codes.


From Wikipedia > List of Airlines Codes


  IATA airline designators [..] are two-character codes [..]


and


  after an airline is delisted, the code becomes available for reuse after six months




The last quotation suggests that no two airline companies can share the same IATA code.

Depending on the characters allowed, a two-character codes can make $26^2=676$ combinations or eventually $36^2=1296$ combinations. It would take at least 71 different characters authorized to register 5000 companies ($71^2=5041$). It is unlikely that 71 or more characters are authorized. It seems paradoxical to me.

What am I misunderstanding?
It's obviously an error in that Wikipedia page. The "5000 airlines with IATA codes" text actually links to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_codes

which lists lots of airlines (over 6000), but most of those have ICAO (3 letter) codes, but not IATA (2 letter) codes.