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Silliest/most deliberately deceptively named airports?

I was just talking to a couple of pilot friends and we came onto the subject of airport names, and which were the most – let’s say – “geographically challenged” so much so that the airport name is deliberately deceptive.

My vote goes for:

  • London Ashford. Nowhere near London and an hour on a very slow bus to Ashford, or probably an at least £50 taxi fare to Ashford. Over two hours by public transport to get to central London. I heard they justified calling it a “London” airport because it doesn’t take long to get to London from Ashford (which is also nowhere near London).

Close runner up:

  • London Oxford. Again, nowhere near London and two hours away by public transport, and still over an hour away if you get a taxi to the train station.

This all seems like deceptive marketing or a thinly veiled attempt to attract Ryanair.

If HS2 ever gets built, no doubt someone will want to rename Manchester airport as “London Manchester”!

  • Frankfurt Hahn airport. Nowhere near Frankfurt, and has attracted Ryanair. According to Google Maps, an hour and a half driving distance from Frankfurt (126km)
Last Edited by alioth at 06 Dec 13:18
Andreas IOM

With London I find this especially funny – there seems to be no end to the amount of airports that London “has”.

We have our local flavor with EDLV Niederrhein, which used to be marketed as “Düsseldorf”. Passengers from Stansted (not exactly London either, for that matter, but fair enough) initially came and were completely lost in the middle of nowhere. Nowadays, I understand they don’t market it as Düsseldorf anymore and besides, transport connections to Düsseldorf are actually okay.

Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

München Franz-Josef Strauß Airport. Named after the most corrupt polititian of post-war Germany.

EDDS - Stuttgart

EDLN Mönchengladbach was also marketed as Düsseldorf Express during a period in the nineties.
You can find it still under that name in search engines :-)
Was good for me, living there at that time, direct flights to London City.

Sounded silly to me – given today’s distances of airports to their name-saking airports, it was too early, but appropriate.
I believe FJS-Munich airport is further from Munich than EDLN from Düsseldorf …

...
EDM_, Germany

Just remembered that they renamed my home base last year to “Manfred Rommel Airport”. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of foreigners’ first thought when reading that name will be " so the Germans are finally back to hailing nazi heroes ". I guess that even a large portion of German visitors do not know that the war hero’s first name was Erwin.

EDDS - Stuttgart

In that case Oslo (Torp) and Paris (Beauvais) must be good candidates too!

LFPT, LFPN

alioth wrote:

My vote goes for:

London Ashford. Nowhere near London and an hour on a very slow bus to Ashford, or probably an at least £50 taxi fare to Ashford. Over two hours by public transport to get to central London. I heard they justified calling it a “London” airport because it doesn’t take long to get to London from Ashford (which is also nowhere near London).

You missed London Southend airport ;-)

LGMG Megara, Greece

Southend (EGMC) is actually pretty good for London now since it became an EasyJet base.

A new train station was built about 1 minutes walk from the terminal and there are regular trains (3 an hour off peak, 6 an hour peak) to Liverpool Street in the City in just under an hour. About the same on the underground to Heathrow!

I live on the same train line and it’s about 20 minutes – very convenient!

Haven’t landed there recently, but controllers are great and I hear the airport is very welcoming.

Last Edited by NickP at 08 Dec 11:52
Stapleford, United Kingdom

petakas wrote:

You missed London Southend airport ;-)

For me, leaving at the border of the City / Shoreditch, Southend is almost better named than Gatwick!

Given that Rommel was forced to kill himself as a consequence of the Stauffenberg plot and that stories one hears from veterans of the desert war tell of a “clean” war in-so-much as there can be such a thing, I imagine that Erwin Rommel would not be too controversial.

strip near EGGW
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