I have the distinct pleasure of having XNA as my home airport. It is a wonderful little airport nestled in Northwest Arkansas, the closest airport to both Bentonville and Fayetteville Arkansas. I usually fly American, so when I am at either CTL, ORD, DFW, LAX, LGA (or soon DCA), the display boards in the concourse and at the counter list the flight as going to Northwest Arkansas. Recently, I flew Delta, which lists the flight in the concourse and at the counter as Fayetteville. Then, I noticed while flying United, they say Fayetteville on the concourse board but Bentonville at the counter! Here is a summary:

American: Northwest Arkansas
Delta: Fayetteville
United: Fayetteville or Bentonville (varies)

My question is two fold. First, why the discrepancies (especially within United, this makes no sense). Second, does anyone else have examples of this occurring with other airports?

BDL? Hartford versus Hartford/Springfield, and when RP flew STL-BDL they almost always said Bradley.

I must admit I was impressed that Delta seemed to always display city+state. I never looked at their international flights, however I assume they'd be Sydney, Australia - not Sydney, New South Wales.

I've seen SNA get listed as Orange County, Santa Ana, and John Wayne Airport on various display screens across the country. You basically have to know all three names to find your flight.

WOW Air advertises BWI as "Washington"

Cubsrule wrote:

BDL? Hartford versus Hartford/Springfield, and when RP flew STL-BDL they almost always said Bradley.

I think I've seen airlines refer to it as Windsor Locks too. Four different names for a small(er) airport!

BWIAirport wrote:

WOW Air advertises BWI as "Washington"

Near enough is good enough

I know G4 lists XNA as Northwest Arkansas on their stuff. Although for a while, they labeled it as Bentonville, but changed it to Northwest Arkansas before I left about a year ago. I've also seen them label CVG as Northern Kentucky instead of Cincinnati. And PIE labeled as Tampa, especially when you are booking on their website, it use to be labeled as Tampa. I guess they changed it since I was there, because it now reads Tampa/St. Pete. Too many complaints I'm assuming.

MSNDreaming wrote:

Second, does anyone else have examples of this occurring with other airports?

Does Ryanair count?

I have always thought it neat that even when UA or other airlines refer to Newark as New York/Newark, it's still in the same place it would otherwise be in alphabetical order!

I was going to mention SNA as well. Also, it's usually still prefaced with "Washington" so people will still be able to find it on GIDS, but I have noticed Washington-Reagan more and more often being referred to as Washington-National or Washington-DCA. (please avoid political commentary re: this, although I am sure this is why it is happening).

UALFAson wrote:

I have always thought it neat that even when UA or other airlines refer to Newark as New York/Newark, it's still in the same place it would otherwise be in alphabetical order!

I was going to mention SNA as well. Also, it's usually still prefaced with "Washington" so people will still be able to find it on GIDS, but I have noticed Washington-Reagan more and more often being referred to as Washington-National or Washington-DCA. (please avoid political commentary re: this, although I am sure this is why it is happening).

To me, it actually seems to be Washington-Reagan more now than in the past, which makes sense as it's the newest of the 3 names you refer to. Washington-DCA and Washington-IAD are smart solely because they save space and ambiguity.

Many a year ago I flew Skyway (Midwest Connect) YYZ-MKE, and the destination displayed at the gate said "General Mitchell" (no city, just the airport name). I guess that was to distinguish it from all the flights going to Timmerman.

Every UA in flight map on a flight into EWR now says NEW YORK (EWR). Larger cities of perhaps 50,000 or more are usually mapped separately but New York itself isn't mapped and not shown separately the way Oakland is shown as being distinct from San Francisco.

mikegigs wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

BDL? Hartford versus Hartford/Springfield, and when RP flew STL-BDL they almost always said Bradley.

I think I've seen airlines refer to it as Windsor Locks too. Four different names for a small(er) airport!

+1 Windsor Locks came to mind right away when I saw Hartford.

BigGSFO wrote:

I've seen SNA get listed as Orange County, Santa Ana, and John Wayne Airport on various display screens across the country. You basically have to know all three names to find your flight.

Or look at the gate information and flight number on your boarding pass

Really helps me with Chinese or Russian displays

coolian2 wrote:

BWIAirport wrote:

WOW Air advertises BWI as "Washington"

Near enough is good enough

You get what you pay for with ULCC naming conventions... though honestly it's worse in Europe:

Hahn cross-referenced as Frankfurt
Memmingen cross-referenced as Munich West
Weeze cross-referenced as Düsseldorf
Bergamo cross-referenced as Milan
Girona cross-referenced as Barcelona

Same thing happens with OOL - Gold Coast Airport (perviously Coolangatta Airport).

When booking NZ calls it Gold Coast, but on the screens in the Terminal in AKL and long with airport/crew anncouments NZ still refers to it being Coolangatta.

Central Wisconsin (CWA) was built in 1970 to serve Wausau, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids and Marshfield, with the airport build (somewhat) centrally located in the city of Mosinee WI.

--Typically listed as Wausau or Wausau/Stevens Point.
--The old Amex flight guide referred to it as Mosinee.
--Although airport monitors nearly always say Wausau, often it is announced as "flight XXXX to Centtral Wisconsin"
--Among airport workers it is often referred to as "Seaway" (prouncing CWA) and I've heard gate agents announce "flight XXXX to Seaway"

If you're from Central Wisconsin or fly there often you know what they're talking about. But it's confusing for those not as familiar.

Folks – thanks for all of the interesting and informative replies. I enjoy seeing other examples both within the US and in other countries. I should clarify my original post, however, XNA is the closest airport with commercial airline service to Bentonville and Fayetteville (I’m surprised no one called me out on that!).

Your replies have motivated me to dig a bit deeper as to reasons behind the different naming systems.

Pros for Fayetteville nomenclature: the University of Arkansas is in Fayetteville (go Hogs!). Drake Field in Greenland (FYV, just south of Fayetteville) used to be the primary airport in the area with commercial service before XNA opened in 1998.

Pros for Bentonville: Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters are in Bentonville. While XNA is technically located in Highfill Arkansas, the address is 1 Airport Blvd, Bentonville, AR.

Pros for Northwest Arkansas: there are actually four relatively large cities in a row just east of XNA: Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville (with other small cities in the area, including Lowell). Springdale is the corporate headquarters for Tyson Foods, Lowell is the corporate headquarters for JB Hunt.

So I don’t disagree with any of the display names chosen by the airlines, but how do airlines choose the display names? Obviously, there isn’t a set methodology. In addition, why would United use two different display names? This is bizarre, and if I wasn’t living in Northwest Arkansas, I’d have no idea that a plane going to Fayetteville and Bentonville are going to the same airport.

In LAX, the city name on the baggage claim sign says the flight is from "Pudong". On the departures board, it says the flight goes to "Shanghai".

zkncj wrote:

Same thing happens with OOL - Gold Coast Airport (perviously Coolangatta Airport).

When booking NZ calls it Gold Coast, but on the screens in the Terminal in AKL and long with airport/crew anncouments NZ still refers to it being Coolangatta.

Same with Maroochydore / Sunshine Coast.

MSNDreaming wrote:

I have the distinct pleasure of having XNA as my home airport. It is a wonderful little airport nestled in Northwest Arkansas, the closest airport to both Bentonville and Fayetteville Arkansas. I usually fly American, so when I am at either CTL, ORD, DFW, LAX, LGA (or soon DCA), the display boards in the concourse and at the counter list the flight as going to Northwest Arkansas. Recently, I flew Delta, which lists the flight in the concourse and at the counter as Fayetteville. Then, I noticed while flying United, they say Fayetteville on the concourse board but Bentonville at the counter! Here is a summary:

American: Northwest Arkansas
Delta: Fayetteville
United: Fayetteville or Bentonville (varies)

My question is two fold. First, why the discrepancies (especially within United, this makes no sense). Second, does anyone else have examples of this occurring with other airports?

We live just next door to each other! My local is Tulsa Airport, makes for some interesting spotting with Lufthansa Tek their!

In answer to your question.... no idea

I believe DL lists TRI listed as "Tri Cities, TN" but elsewhere I've seen "Blountville." Strange considering Blountville is not even one of the 3 main cities making up the TRI name.

Coal wrote:

zkncj wrote:

Same thing happens with OOL - Gold Coast Airport (perviously Coolangatta Airport).

When booking NZ calls it Gold Coast, but on the screens in the Terminal in AKL and long with airport/crew anncouments NZ still refers to it being Coolangatta.

Same with Maroochydore / Sunshine Coast.

Interestingly when they officially changed their name from "Maroochydore" to "Sunshine Coast" about ten years ago, they also changed their ICAO designator from YBMC to YBSU to reflect the new name and I believe they also changed the VOR designator from MC to SU. But left the IATA designator as MCY. I'm guessing that they wanted to but weren't happy with the available codes.

I have encountered THREE names for the same airport during a single trip. Boarding pass said SANTA ANA. Display board at the terminal shows no flight to Santa Ana. Got worried for a minute until I found the flight listed as ORANGE COUNTY. Onboard the flight, after landing the crew announced "Welcome to JOHN WAYNE airport".

Locals tend to refer to the primary Knoxville TN airport (TYS) as "McGhee Tyson" to distinguish it from Knoxville Downtown Island (DKX), even though the latter has not had commercial service since around WWII. I don't recall any airlines branding it as anything other than Knoxville though.

ua900 wrote:

You get what you pay for with ULCC naming conventions... though honestly it's worse in Europe:

Hahn cross-referenced as Frankfurt
Memmingen cross-referenced as Munich West
Weeze cross-referenced as Düsseldorf
Bergamo cross-referenced as Milan
Girona cross-referenced as Barcelona

And Beauvais as Paris (flew that on Wizz Air once).

Last time I was at Dubai Airport, ICN was simply labeled as "Incheon" without any mention of Seoul (which is technically correct). I think Honolulu Airport does the same for flights to ICN.

The City of Incheon actually made a formal request to five different Korean airlines to omit the word "Seoul" from any announcements that pertain to flights arriving and departing from ICN. OZ was the only airline to reject it.

How much of the displayed information is under the control of the airline and how much under the control of the airport?
Obviously the airline's own printed and on-line information is very much under their control, along with announcements made on board and at gates.
But display screens at airports, and general announcements, may be managed by the airport staff instead. I could imagine a system where flight information is fed by a database, so that whoever updates the status of a flight doesn't have to key all the information in every time something changes - given the number of different codeshares on some flights it would take all day otherwise. So flight XX1234 to YYY causes a lookup on the XX and that produces the airline name, and on some systems the airline logo, and on the YYY to produce the airport name. Then what is displayed is down to the person who maintains the database.
A few years ago new airport management decided that airport EMA (East Midlands) should be renamed Nottingham-East Midlands as Nottingham is the largest of the three cities it serves. It took quite some time for this to propagate around the 100 or so airports with service to/from EMA, many seasonal. There were problems in many places as the airport name was then too long for the display fields on monitors and electronic displays.
The renaming was very unpopular locally (as the original name was deliberately chosen to be neutral, so the other two cities, Derby and Leicester objected strongly). The inbound tourism that the change was supposed to produce totally failed to appear, the manager was replaced, and the name reverted to East Midlands. But it took up to 5 years for the name to change back again on airport displays around Europe.
In this case the airlines had absolutely nothing to do with the displayed name, and if there were two airlines flying from the same airport to EMA they both got the wrong destination name applied to their flights.

I'm always surprised airlines uniformly use the Seattle/Tacoma name for SEA when it would be just as easy to just say Seattle and drop Tacoma. Although I think it would be unfair to Tacoma, and perhaps there are enough people (esp military and their families) who are headed to Tacoma that it's probably worth keeping, it still seems like someone would omit it and then people like myself would have an opportunity to angrily tweet at them about it until they changed it.

Full disclosure: I don't live in Tacoma (anymore), nor did I grow up there, but I'm one of those people who thinks out of town corporations should go to the effort to do things the way we do them here. Using the correct name for things is at the top of my list of pet peeves.

MSNDreaming wrote:

I have the distinct pleasure of having XNA as my home airport. It is a wonderful little airport nestled in Northwest Arkansas, the closest airport to both Bentonville and Fayetteville Arkansas. I usually fly American, so when I am at either CTL, ORD, DFW, LAX, LGA (or soon DCA), the display boards in the concourse and at the counter list the flight as going to Northwest Arkansas. Recently, I flew Delta, which lists the flight in the concourse and at the counter as Fayetteville. Then, I noticed while flying United, they say Fayetteville on the concourse board but Bentonville at the counter! Here is a summary:

American: Northwest Arkansas
Delta: Fayetteville
United: Fayetteville or Bentonville (varies)

My question is two fold. First, why the discrepancies (especially within United, this makes no sense). Second, does anyone else have examples of this occurring with other airports?

Specifically for XNA, AA stays away from Fayetteville to avoid confusion with Fayetteville, NC

Reminds me that a few years back I was served by a check-in agent who clearly wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box. When she asked where I was travelling to I said Kahului, then after a few seconds she said with a puzzled look on her face "no, you're going to Maui"

There seems to be several reasons for multiple names for airports and how/where used. Some are political, some to express the primary service city or region, to prevent confusion like with Newark (EWR) - New York. Sometimes the shortest name may be used due to limited space on flight notice boards.

Cubsrule wrote:

BDL? Hartford versus Hartford/Springfield, and when RP flew STL-BDL they almost always said Bradley.

BDL is my home airport, and I almost always see it listed as either Hartford/Springfield or just Hartford. Once on board, at least on DL, the F/As always just call it Hartford (and once in a rare while, the pilot might refer to flying to Windsor Locks).

b6sea wrote:

Full disclosure: I don't live in Tacoma (anymore), nor did I grow up there, but I'm one of those people who thinks out of town corporations should go to the effort to do things the way we do them here. Using the correct name for things is at the top of my list of pet peeves.

On a sort of similar note, ATL is always "Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport" on DL. I know there are some political/racial dynamics with that name in Atlanta, but it seems sort of silly.

When I lived in Chile, LA and UC always gave the city and the airport in the post-landing announcement (e.g. la Ciudad de Calama y el Aeropuerto El Loa). I can't recall if that was a LA thing or a Chilean airline thing, but AA and DL were always just "Welcome to Santiago."

Back in the old days the FSS guys used to read SNA as "Santa Ana John Wayne Orange County."

Wingtips56 wrote:

I'm assuming Norwegian will be posting SWF as New York/something, PVD as Boston/Green or Boston/TF Green (from the initial press that's out, not as Providence RI ). Not sure what they will call BDL.
Similar marketing as what Ryanair does with the Brussels (Charleroi and Zaventem), Frankfurt (Hahn), Barcelona (Girona) and others that are many miles/km away from the real city.

Not "will", but "has" since they've already formally announced them and are already bookable.

Stewart is called New York/Newburgh-Stewart (SWF)
Providence is called Providence/Boston-TF Green (PVD)
Bradley is called Connecticut/Hartford-Bradley (BDL)

Specially Stewart is interesting because when you select New York-All airports this also includes Stewart.

On the European side of the pond there are plenty of "alternative" airport names. Take Bergamo for example, officially called Orio al Serio airport since it's closest to the village of Orio al Serio. It's also called Bergamo-Orio al Serio airport or just Bergamo airport. Then some airlines call it Milan Bergamo airport or even Milan Bergamo-Orio al Serio airport. That's three town names being used for the same airport.

Wingtips56 wrote:

I believe Tacoma is (or was) invested in the airport along with Seattle, thereby getting "naming rights" as Seattle/Tacoma. I don't know if that fell out during the time Seattle was promoting it's then-new name Henry Jackson International Airport.
Dallas/Ft. Worth is similar in that Ft. Worth is invested in the airport and strongly claims being co-named. It's not just to distinguish it from Dallas/Love Field or Ft. Worth/Meacham Airport. When I came into AA from AirCal in 1987, our instruction was to always announce it and sign it as Dallas/Ft. Worth, never leaving out the Ft. Worth part.

Once upon a time IATA published the accepted names for airports and how to abbreviate them on a ticket when the full name wouldn't fit, hence: Minneapolis/St. Paul or MPLS/ST PAUL.
They were always quite specific about multi-airport cities.

The confusing thing about these multi-city airport is that people often only know one of the two cities and take the other one for the airport name. Then if you do say the real airport name they got no idea. Here in Europe most people have heard of Seattle, but if you ask them about Tacoma they got no idea. Same with Dallas-Fort Worth. People know Dallas, but have never heard of Fort Worth. They mistake that for the airport name.

Here in the Netherlands we also got a couple of multi-city airports, most famous being Rotterdam-The Hague airport. Previously called Rotterdam Zestienhoven airport (Zestienhoven was the airport name), however this left The Hague without an airport. Since the airport is located north of Rotterdam and also quite close to The Hague they dropped the name Zestienhoven and renamed it from Rotterdam airport to Rotterdam-The Hague airport. The other one is Maastricht-Aachen airport, originally called Maastricht airport or Beek since Beek is the closest village to the airport. But this left Aachen without an airport, so they renamed it to Maastricht-Aachen airport.

HBE - Alexandria and Borg El Arab, Egypt

If i remember rightly there was some agreement to change airport naming of some of the Spanish Canary Islands, ie Las Palmas LPA became Gran Canaria, and Arrecife ACE became Lanzarote.

UALFAson wrote:

Also, it's usually still prefaced with "Washington" so people will still be able to find it on GIDS, but I have noticed Washington-Reagan more and more often being referred to as Washington-National or Washington-DCA. (please avoid political commentary re: this, although I am sure this is why it is happening).

Probably because "Washington National Airport" has never been removed from the historic old main terminal building.

http://airchive.com/html/airplanes-and- ... bside/9343

XNA is also my home airport and I almost exclusively fly DL. Their website has jumped around a bit over the last few years as to what they refer to XNA as. Even their FA's, both regional and mainline, sometimes get confused on what to call it. For a while, and it may still, their online timetable even used the old "FYV" code, even when they obviously only operated from XNA.

MSNDreaming wrote:

Pros for Fayetteville nomenclature: the University of Arkansas is in Fayetteville (go Hogs!). Drake Field in Greenland (FYV, just south of Fayetteville) used to be the primary airport in the area with commercial service before XNA opened in 1998.

Pros for Bentonville: Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters are in Bentonville. While XNA is technically located in Highfill Arkansas, the address is 1 Airport Blvd, Bentonville, AR.

Pros for Northwest Arkansas: there are actually four relatively large cities in a row just east of XNA: Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville (with other small cities in the area, including Lowell). Springdale is the corporate headquarters for Tyson Foods, Lowell is the corporate headquarters for JB Hunt.

I'd vote for Northwest Arkansas. (And I'd also vote for a little consolidation of cities outside of the biggest 2 or 3. )

This is OT but I also find it interesting that in the US, departures are listed alphabetically (for the most part - there are exceptions like in OKC where the large display above the main security checkpoint displays them chronologically IIRC - don't quote me though). However internationally they're almost always chronological. I always have to do a double-take when abroad and remind myself to look for the departure time, not the destination city. Curious what everyone thinks or would prefer? Of course as a Murrcan I prefer the alphabetical way, but I totes see how listing departures chronologically also makes sense.

by738 wrote:

If i remember rightly there was some agreement to change airport naming of some of the Spanish Canary Islands, ie Las Palmas LPA became Gran Canaria, and Arrecife ACE became Lanzarote.

They still use both. Flying from DUB it always says Lanzarote where as last time I flew from LGW on BA it said Arrecife. I personally use Arrecife/Las Palmas.

9w748capt wrote:

This is OT but I also find it interesting that in the US, departures are listed alphabetically (for the most part - there are exceptions like in OKC where the large display above the main security checkpoint displays them chronologically IIRC - don't quote me though). However internationally they're almost always chronological. I always have to do a double-take when abroad and remind myself to look for the departure time, not the destination city. Curious what everyone thinks or would prefer? Of course as a Murrcan I prefer the alphabetical way, but I totes see how listing departures chronologically also makes sense.

I actually am used to both. I would be slightly more in favor of the US system alphabetically.

wxtech wrote:

Back in the old days the FSS guys used to read SNA as "Santa Ana John Wayne Orange County."

Who are the FSS guys? I remember US Airways in the mid nineties listed it as Santa Ana which I thought was strange, as a long time resident I have never referred to it as that or heard anyone in OC or anywhere in Socal refer to it as Santa Ana either. The airport is technically in Santa Ana, but it doesn't seem like it, the city lines are drawn to include it. Irvine is across the street to the entrance, Costa Mesa is on the other side of the runway and as soon as you take off you are in Newport (barring Santa Ana wind conditions)

Wingtips56 wrote:

I believe Tacoma is (or was) invested in the airport along with Seattle, thereby getting "naming rights" as Seattle/Tacoma. I don't know if that fell out during the time Seattle was promoting it's then-new name Henry Jackson International Airport.
Dallas/Ft. Worth is similar in that Ft. Worth is invested in the airport and strongly claims being co-named. It's not just to distinguish it from Dallas/Love Field or Ft. Worth/Meacham Airport. When I came into AA from AirCal in 1987, our instruction was to always announce it and sign it as Dallas/Ft. Worth, never leaving out the Ft. Worth part.

Once upon a time IATA published the accepted names for airports and how to abbreviate them on a ticket when the full name wouldn't fit, hence: Minneapolis/St. Paul or MPLS/ST PAUL.
They were always quite specific about multi-airport cities.

Yeah, that's correct, Tacoma did put up some of the cost back when the airport was constructed although it is owned and operated by the Port of Seattle, which is not actually affiliated with the City of Seattle (city government) at all (it's a special purpose district that encompasses all of King County). Interestingly, though the airport serves much of Western Washington (King, Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston counties, etc etc), it only collects property taxes from folks in King County and only King County voters get to vote for Port of Seattle commissioners.

It's also true that they did want to name the airport after Scoop Jackson when he died, and the City of Tacoma did protest which is why it's still Seattle-Tacoma International. Interestingly, for those not familiar with the area, SEA is colloquially known as Seatac or SeaTac Airport. It was formerly located in an unincorporated area of King County but in 1990 the area around the airport incorporated as the City of SeaTac. I feel like that has sort of sealed the fate of the Seattle-Tacoma name, but I've noticed some airports in the US (and I assume elsewhere) seem to change their names quite frequently.

On my travels with HA I have heard HNL announced as "our international airport" onboard the plane. I've seen IAH as Houston on AS, Houston Bush on UA and Houston intercontinental on UA. And once on WN after arriving at SEA, "ladies and gentlemen welcome to Jet City, this is the termination of flight..."

I do wonder what PAE will be called if/when the NIMBYs let up and it opens to commercial service.

United list SJD/MMSD as Los Cabos instead of the more common name of Cabo San Lucas.

afcjets wrote:

wxtech wrote:

Back in the old days the FSS guys used to read SNA as "Santa Ana John Wayne Orange County."

Who are the FSS guys? I remember US Airways in the mid nineties listed it as Santa Ana which I thought was strange, as a long time resident I have never referred to it as that or heard anyone in OC or anywhere in Socal refer to it as Santa Ana either. The airport is technically in Santa Ana, but it doesn't seem like it, the city lines are drawn to include it. Irvine is across the street to the entrance, Costa Mesa is on the other side of the runway and as soon as you take off you are in Newport (barring Santa Ana wind conditions)

Flight Service Station... back when actual human beings read the hourly weather obs for the recorded weather line.

KEF is a variety of Reykjavik, Keflavik and Reykjavik/Keflavik with the dual one being the most common.

knope2001 wrote:

Central Wisconsin (CWA) was built in 1970 to serve Wausau, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids and Marshfield, with the airport build (somewhat) centrally located in the city of Mosinee WI.

--Typically listed as Wausau or Wausau/Stevens Point.
--The old Amex flight guide referred to it as Mosinee.
--Although airport monitors nearly always say Wausau, often it is announced as "flight XXXX to Centtral Wisconsin"
--Among airport workers it is often referred to as "Seaway" (prouncing CWA) and I've heard gate agents announce "flight XXXX to Seaway"

If you're from Central Wisconsin or fly there often you know what they're talking about. But it's confusing for those not as familiar.

I flew into CWA for the first time recently (their terminal renovation is gorgeous, by the way) and I was surprised to see "Mosinee" listed on the FIDS at DTW. I was expecting to see "Central Wisconsin" or "Wausau/Stevens Point." Interestingly, the gate monitor listed it as "Wausau/Stevens Point," but that was DL equipment vs. airport equipment, so that may explain the difference.

By the way, I'm in the industry and I always call it "Seaway."