History27 SEP 20263 min readDromopedia editors

What's in a name

Airports are renamed after presidents, composers and footballers — sometimes within weeks of a death, sometimes two centuries after it. The three letters on the baggage tag almost never change.

WV banner JFK Airport Terminals 6 and 7
John F. Kennedy International Airport · Eheik · CC0 · Commons

John F. Kennedy was shot on 22 November 1963. Within three weeks the New York City Council had voted, unanimously, to give his name to the city's international airport.1 On Christmas Eve his brother Edward and his sister Jean Kennedy Smith unveiled the new sign at the International Arrivals Building.2

The airport's official name until then was New York International Airport, but almost everyone called it Idlewild, after the golf course it had been built over. Even the code on its baggage tags said IDL. That changed too: from the first days of 1964 the tags read JFK.3

JFKJohn F. Kennedy International Airport US · 13 FT / 4 M · RWY 14,511 FT / 4,423 MRenamed on 24 December 1963, a month after the assassination. The code changed from IDL to JFK at the start of 1964.

Who gets an airport

A renaming is a public decision, and it is taken by whoever owns the name: a city council in New York and Houston, a regional government in Madeira, a national cabinet in Nepal and Serbia, and in Washington an act of Congress. President Clinton signed the law that made Washington National into Ronald Reagan Washington National on 6 February 1998, Reagan's 87th birthday.4

Politicians are only one part of the list. Salzburg took the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1996,5 Warsaw that of Frédéric Chopin in 2001,6 and Belgrade that of Nikola Tesla in 2006, for the 150th anniversary of his birth.7 New Orleans added Louis Armstrong's name in August 2001, the month of his centenary.8 In Jamaica, the Boscobel aerodrome reopened in 2011 as Ian Fleming International, after the writer who wrote the James Bond novels at his house nearby.9

Some honours come in the subject's lifetime. Kraków named its airport after Pope John Paul II in 1995,10 and Houston's council voted in April 1997 to call its intercontinental airport after the former president George Bush.11

Liverpool renamed Speke airport after John Lennon in 2001. Yoko Ono unveiled the new logo, a self-portrait sketch by Lennon, with a line from "Imagine" under it: "above us only sky".12

LPLLiverpool John Lennon Airport GB · 24 M / 80 FT · RWY 2,285 M / 7,497 FTLiverpool Speke became Liverpool John Lennon in 2001. The code stayed LPL.

In Nepal, the airport at Lukla was renamed within a month of Sir Edmund Hillary's death in January 2008. The cabinet approved the name Tenzing-Hillary on 10 February, honouring both men of the first ascent of Everest.13

A bust in Madeira

Madeira's regional government announced in July 2016 that the island's airport would carry the name of Cristiano Ronaldo, who was born in Funchal.14 The ceremony, on 29 March 2017, was attended by the President and the Prime Minister of Portugal. It is mostly remembered for the bronze bust of the footballer unveiled that day, which was widely mocked. A little over a year later it was quietly replaced with a new one.15

FNCCristiano Ronaldo International Airport PT · 59 M / 192 FT · RWY 2,777 M / 9,110 FTMadeira Airport until 2017, then Cristiano Ronaldo International. The code stayed FNC.

Names taken away

Renamings can also run the other way. Johannesburg's airport opened in 1952 as Jan Smuts Airport, after the former prime minister. In 1994 the new government chose neutral names for airports, and it became Johannesburg International. Twelve years later that policy was set aside. On 27 October 2006, which would have been Oliver Tambo's 89th birthday, President Thabo Mbeki declared that the airport "shall henceforth be known, called and celebrated as the O R Tambo International Airport".16

JNBO.R. Tambo International Airport ZA · 1,694 M / 5,558 FT · RWY 4,418 M / 14,495 FTJan Smuts until 1994, Johannesburg International until 2006, then O. R. Tambo.

In Skopje the name became part of a dispute between two countries. The airport had been called after Alexander the Great, a figure Greece regards as part of its own history. In February 2018, as a gesture during the talks on the name of the country, the government in Skopje renamed it Skopje International Airport. The agreement that ended the dispute was signed four months later.17

The code stays

Through all of this the three-letter code usually stays the same. Liverpool is still LPL, Johannesburg JNB, Madeira FNC, Lukla LUA. IATA, which assigns the codes, calls them "permanent": they are "almost never changed — and then only with strong justification, primarily concerning air safety". The example IATA gives is not a renaming at all. Washington Dulles was switched from DIA to IAD so that it could not be confused with Washington National, DCA.18

So Kennedy's airport is the exception. Most renamed airports keep an old name in their code, and many keep it in speech: Warsaw's airport is still widely called Okęcie.6

How the codes themselves are built, and why so many never matched the name in the first place, is in the reference on airport codes.

Sources

  1. The Bowery Boys, "The story of Idlewild Airport, renamed John F. Kennedy International", 2017, quoting The New York Times of 11 December 1963.

  2. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, press release on JFK's 2013 milestones and the 50th anniversary of the renaming, 2013.

  3. "Idlewild Airport Tower Now Called Kennedy", Chicago Tribune, 2 January 1964, p. 14.

  4. Public Law 105-154, 6 February 1998; the President's signing statement, The American Presidency Project.

  5. Salzburg Airport, history.

  6. Warsaw Chopin Airport, history. 2

  7. B92, report of 2 February 2006 on the government's approval of the new name.

  8. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, history.

  9. Ministry of Transport and Mining, Jamaica, "Ian Fleming International Airport opened"; Jamaica Information Service, "Ian Fleming Airport welcomes first scheduled commercial flight".

  10. Kraków Airport, history of the airport (in Polish).

  11. UPI, "Houston renaming airport after Bush", 16 April 1997.

  12. Irish Examiner, report on the renaming, July 2001; Airways, "Speke renamed John Lennon Airport".

  13. The Himalayan Times, "Airport, route named after Tenzing, Hillary", 11 February 2008.

  14. RTP / Lusa, "Madeira muda nome do aeroporto para homenagear Cristiano Ronaldo", July 2016 (in Portuguese); Encyclopaedia Britannica, Cristiano Ronaldo.

  15. CNN, report on the unveiling, 29 March 2017; RTÉ, report on the replacement bust, June 2018.

  16. South African Government, address by President Thabo Mbeki at the renaming, 27 October 2006; IOL, "Airport name change at point of no return", 10 July 2006.

  17. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, report of 6 February 2018; Balkan Insight, report of 16 February 2018; Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the name issue.

  18. IATA, fact sheet: IATA location codes, under Resolution 763.

Codes, elevations and runway lengths in the airport cards are from the Dromopedia register, built from FAA NASR and OurAirports. Each entry’s data page names the source of every field; see also About the data.