American Airlines has updated the gate monitors for flights to West Palm Beach, and they no longer mention President Trump. This seems like a sensible change (unrelated to politics), and the timing sure is… interesting.
American changes “Pres DJT, W Palm Beach” monitors
Over the summer, we saw Palm Beach International Airport (PBI) renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport. We knew that Trump wanted an airport named after him, and some conservative politicians in Florida came together to make it happen.
It’s interesting to see how airlines handled this. At the time, American updated its gate monitors for flights to West Palm Beach. The monitors initially read “West Palm Beach, FL.” American then updated the monitors to say “Pres DJT, W Palm Beach.” Now JonNYC reports that as of this week, the airport name listed on the monitors has been changed again, and is back to the original name, with no mention of Trump.
JonNYC specifically emphasizes that he’s not claiming there’s any connection between this and the election results, though the timing of it happening this week sure is interesting.
Politics aside, this seems like a sensible change
Personally I’m not a fan of airports being named after even semi-controversial figures, and particularly politicians. It’s something I’ve said over and over, regardless of the party affiliation of the person. Unless a city has multiple airports, I think it’s also stupid to identify the airport based on the name rather than the place.
Like, it makes sense to clarify London Heathrow (LHR) vs. London Gatwick (LGW), but it’s not like there are multiple airports in West Palm Beach. For that matter, saying you’re “flying to President Trump” just sounds a little weird, in my opinion.
JonNYC notes that he’s not suggesting that this had anything to do with the recent election, though everything about the timing here is interesting:
- American’s decision in the first place to label the airport as “Pres DJT” broke the carrier’s historical naming mechanism, because in the past the airline would only put the airport name for cities with multiple commercial airports, and would list the place and then the name (so if West Palm Beach had multiple airports — which it doesn’t — it would be “West Palm Beach – Pres DJT”)
- One can’t help but wonder if this was an attempt to suck up to Trump, given, you know, *gestures broadly*
- The reversal of this is now timed interestingly, because, well, Trump doesn’t have a whole lot of power anymore (except for his promise of using “tremendous” executive powers)
Bottom line
American Airlines seems to have quietly reversed course on how it refers to West Palm Beach’s airport on its gate monitors. In recent months, the airline has referred to the airport as “Pres DJT, W Palm Beach,” while now it seems to be back to “West Palm Beach, FL.”
This change comes the same week as the midterm elections, though everyone can decide for themselves to what extent these points are related…
What do you make of this American gate monitor change?
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