In 1941, Oklahoma Metropolis Municipal Airport (OKC) was renamed to honor Oklahoma native and Cherokee Indian Will Rogers. Rogers was a legendary cowboy, actor, author and humorist who died in Alaska in 1935 throughout an airplane crash with famous aviator Wiley Put up.
Now, Will Rogers World Airport, Oklahoma’s busiest airport, is altering its identify once more.
The brand new identify, accepted lately by the Oklahoma Metropolis Council, shall be “OKC Will Rogers Worldwide Airport.”
Why the id change?
“Promotion of the Airport and the neighborhood drove the identify and brand change,” Jeff Mulder, Oklahoma Metropolis’s director of airports, stated in a press release. Including “OKC” and “worldwide” to the identify will assist with advertising and marketing the airport to airways and companies all over the world, he added.
After a 2021 terminal enlargement and a web site redo, the airport was searching for “a extra trendy really feel,” OKC spokesperson Stacey Hamm stated. “We felt it was time to additionally undergo a branding course of to replace the entire airport.” That included reevaluating the airport’s identify, she added.
The airport employed Nominee Design, a branding firm that spent three months researching and visiting airports comparable in measurement to OKC. The corporate performed surveys and interviews with passengers, in addition to state and neighborhood leaders.
Questions on dropping “Will Rogers” from the airport’s identify had been included within the surveys and the interviews.
“We did have some people state they didn’t know who he was and could be OK if his identify was not included,” Hamm stated. However due to Rogers’ reference to Oklahoma, they determined to maintain his identify and “focus extra on his contributions to aviation as a substitute of the cowboy and spotlight OKC within the identify,” she added.
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What about including “worldwide” to the airport’s identify?
OKC presently does not have any worldwide flights on its route map. Nevertheless, the airport is constructing a global customs facility that ought to be accomplished within the first quarter of 2025, in line with Hamm. The airport can be in talks with two airways to offer nonstop routes to Cancun and different locations in Mexico.
“We hope to know one thing quickly,” she stated.
Whereas the brand new identify will emphasize, and never alter, the airport’s three-letter code — OKC — there are prices related to the rebranding.
Along with the branding firm’s charge ($160,000), the outdated identify is utilized in many locations, together with the airport’s web site, state freeway indicators and throughout the airport property.
A brand new OKC web site is scheduled to roll out in November with “the brand new model colours, the brand new wordmark of the identify and different model parts,” Hamm stated.
Whereas there is not any official tally for what it’ll value to finish the airport-wide identify change, the estimate simply to replace the present entrance signal is about $17,000.
Different airports have switched names
OKC isn’t the one airport that has undergone a rebranding in an effort to draw extra airways and passengers.
In California, the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners voted to change the name of Metropolitan Oakland Worldwide Airport (OAK) to San Francisco Bay Oakland Worldwide Airport this previous Might.
The goal of that name change is to “appeal to extra nonstop locations by boosting vacationers’ geographic consciousness of the airport’s location on the San Francisco Bay,” the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners stated.
Nevertheless, in response to the Oakland airport identify change, San Francisco’s metropolis legal professional filed a federal trademark infringement lawsuit towards town of Oakland. Doug Yakel, spokesperson for San Francisco Worldwide Airport (SFO), stated that the lawsuit continues to be ongoing.
In Nevada, McCarran Worldwide Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas was formally renamed Harry Reid Worldwide Airport in December 2021 to honor the previous U.S. senator.
Moreover, Louisville Worldwide Airport (SDF) in Kentucky was renamed Louisville Muhammad Ali Worldwide Airport in 2019 in honor of boxing champion and Louisville native Muhammad Ali.
Nevertheless, efforts to rename Nashville Worldwide Airport (BNA) after Oprah Winfrey and to rename Pittsburgh Worldwide Airport (PIT) as Fred Rogers Worldwide Airport to honor the youngsters’s TV host Mister Rogers haven’t succeeded.
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