Note: This article pertaining to Other Airports Should Follow the Lead of This Airport — If Only For One Reason was originally published on Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 11:47 in the evening and has been updated.
After having been known for 14 years as Bob Hope Airport, the name reverted back to Hollywood Burbank Airport in 2017 — a name this airport in California had not been officially called since 1978.
Other Airports Should Follow the Lead of This Airport — If Only For One Reason…
Originally known as United Airport in 1930 after the airline, the airport has had its name changed to — yes, believe it or not — Hollywood-Burbank Airport in 1967.
In 1978, the name changed again to Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport — and despite two more name changes, the entity which oversees the operations of the airport is still to this day known as the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena-Airport Authority.
Those two other name changes were Bob Hope Airport in 2003 — in honor of the late comedian — before reverting back to Hollywood Burbank Airport without the hyphen. Legally, however, the name of the airport remains Bob Hope Airport — but it will no longer be known as that name.
Why was the name of the airport changed again earlier in 2017?
“A lot of people east of the Rockies didn’t know where Bob Hope Airport was,” Lucy M. Burghdorf — who was the director of public affairs and communications for the airport in 2017 — said, according to this article written by Mary Forgione of the Los Angeles Times. “Was it in Palm Springs? Or Vietnam?”
Why Name Airports After People?
As I first did in this article in 2016, I am going to give you a little quiz — some new names have been added since then — and please do not use any aid or assistance in deriving the answers, as they should be strictly confined to your knowledge and memory.
Can you tell me who are the following people and for what they are known?
- Edward O’Hare
- Edward Lawrence Logan
- Eugene M. Bradley
- Eugene C. Eppley
- William B. Hartsfield
- William P. Hobby
- William R. Hopkins
- Henri Coandă
- Ben Elbert Douglas, Sr.
- Donald Sangster
- John Foster Dulles
- Lester B. Pearson
- Medgar Wiley Evers
- Francisco de Sá Carneiro
- Jorge Newbery
- Benito Juárez
- Juan Pistarini
- Harry Reid
- Charles Kingsford Smith
- Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo
You probably know who are one of those people listed — perhaps more than one. Chances are, however, that you are not familiar with all of the names on that list other than the fact that international airports are named after them.
Final Boarding Call
People should not be idolized by naming airports and highways — and erecting monuments and statues — after them, in my opinion. In many cases, doing so creates more problems than solving them.
I have asked this question before — specifically, in this article: what is the point of naming an airport after someone? Why must naming airports be more complicated than necessary? Why not just name it after the destination it serves, as with Hollywood Burbank Airport? That practice would be significantly less expensive, reduce political wrangling, practically eliminate controversial issues — and writing out the full name of the airport would overall be easier:
- Denver International Airport
- San Francisco International Airport
- Miami International Airport
If possible, I would even consider changing the airport codes to reflect going back to basics:
- Chicago International Airport — CIA
- New York International Airport — NYI
- Boston International Airport — BIA
In locations with more than one airport, perhaps differentiate them by either purpose or direction:
- Houston International Airport
- Houston Domestic Airport
- Houston Airport East
Locations that are only served by a single airport perhaps should drop an adjective such as the word international — including but not limited to:
- Atlanta Airport
- Memphis Airport
- Newark Airport
Why use the word international, anyway — other than as a differentiator from another airport within its proximity from which flights do not serve international locations? “Oh, I would much rather use that airport because it has the word international in its name.”
People would clearly know which cities or locations those airports served with the aforementioned name changes.
Although I personally did not think that Bob Hope was all that funny, I do respect his work as an actor and as a comedian. To me, he should be remembered through the very media he helped to transform: his movies and television shows — not by the renaming of an airport. He also pioneered entertaining the military — even when times were gloomy.
Similar to Hollywood Burbank Airport, I personally believe that John F. Kennedy International Airport should go by its original name: New York International Airport. The name says it all. It is simple and to the point. That is so much better than its subsequent names, one of which was Idlewild Airport. What is an Idlewild, anyway? Is that what happens when an airplane engine races uncontrollably while the aircraft sits on a tarmac?
I will be the first to admit that Brian Cohen International Airport does not quite smoothly roll off the tongue; nor does BCIA or Brian Cohen Expressway. I am not sure I want something named after me to be run over by millions of cars per year or have some Boeing 747-800 airplane land on it — and be marked with oil splatters and skid marks — and even though my bodily functions currently operate normally, I really do not want people to say that the Brian Cohen is “backed up” again…
Source: Hollywood Burbank Airport.
