What A Name to Call an Airport Quiz

Answer: Turkey

This airport opened in Istanbul in 1924 and in 1980 was renamed Ataturk International Airport. At its height, the airport had approximately 45 million people travelling though it every year, and was listed by the Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers as one of the fifty civil engineering feats in that country. However, it eventually outgrew its site, and in 2019 a brand new Istanbul Airport opened, and all scheduled passenger flights were transferred there, leaving Ataturk Airport to handle cargo, maintenance and small business aircraft.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 and died in 1938. He was an officer in the Ottoman and Turkish army. His surname, Ataturk, means "Father of the Turks" and was granted to him in 1934 by the Turkish Parliament. The name is forbidden to be used by anybody else. He led the Turkish nation in the War of Independence against the Allies following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and established a provisional government. He introduced reforms to change the Ottoman Empire into a modern European nation.

The code for this airport is ISL.

Answer: Idlewild Airport

The then Idlewild Airport was dedicated as the New York International airport in 1948. Now the John F Kennedy International Airport, and along with LaGuardia and Newark International airports, come under the umbrella of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and is the largest airport system in the US.

Airline companies such as (to name but a few), British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, EgyptAir, El Al, Emirates, KLM, Luftansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and Turkish Airlines, operate out of JFK. They, and many others, carry millions of passengers all over the world.

Until 1998 the official name of Bolivia's La Paz airport was John F Kennedy. There is also an airport, the John F Kennedy Memorial Airport, in Ashland, Wisconsin, USA.

John F Kennedy was born in 1917 in Massachusetts, and became the 34th President of the United States of America. He served in the US navy during World War II and his boat, PT-109, was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Although injured, he swam with his men to a small island where they were eventually rescued. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. He won a Senate seat in 1952. On 20 January 1961 he was sworn in as President of the USA. Whilst on a trip to Texas, he was shot dead on 22 November 1963 allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy was shot once in the back and once in his head.

The Code for this airport is JFK.

Answer: David Ben-Gurion

The original airport was built in 1936 and consisted of four runways made out of concrete, and was first known as Wilhelma Airport. It is about ten miles out of Tel Aviv. Then in 1943, the name was changed to RAF Station Lydda. The first international plane to land there, in 1946,was a TWA flight from New York City. In 1973 the airport was named to honour Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. That airport now carries approximately 13 million passengers each year..

David Ben-Gurion was born in Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1886 and died in 1973. In 1912 he moved to Istanbul and studied law and by the start of World War I he had moved to Jerusalem but because of his activities there he was deported to Egypt in 1915. He moved to the United States, went on a tour to try to recruit a pioneering army to fight on Turkey's side, and returned to Palestine at the end of World War I.

He then began his political career that culminated with him being elected as Prime Minister of Israel in 1948.

The Code for this airport is TLV.

Answer: Franz Liszt

The modern Hungarian name for Franz Liszt is Liszt Ferenc and the official name of the airport is Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport. Work commenced on the airport in 1942 and it was reconstructed from 1947 to 1950 and has continued to be developed over the years since then.

Franz Liszt was born in the village of Doborjan in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1811. His father was heavily involved in music and played the piano, violin, cello and guitar. Franz was about six years old when he began to show much interest in music. When he was seven, his father began teaching him to play the piano and he began composing when he was eight. When he was nine he appeared in concerts in Hungary and (now) Slovakia. He was sponsored by a group of wealthy gentlemen and he studied in Vienna and later moved to Paris and then to Geneva, and then Rome. After a long career he died of pneumonia in Germany in 1886 aged 74. He has been considered by some to be the greatest pianist of all time.

The Code for this airport is BUD.

Answer: Charles de Gaulle Airport

The Aeroport de Paris Nord (Paris North Airport) began construction in 1966 and on completion in 1974 was renamed "Charles de Gaulle Airport". It is Europe's busiest airport in passengers (after London's Heathrow) and approximately 60 million passengers pass through it each year. At certain times of the day, the grassy lands surrounding the airport are covered with rabbits and culls are often made to keep their population down.

Charles de Gaulle was born in 1890. He escaped to the UK during World War II from where he organised the Free French Forces with other exiled French officers who had also escaped to Britain. Near the end of the war and for a short time, he became the Prime Minister in the French Provisional Government, but resigned in 1946 due to political conflicts.

In 1958, he founded the French Fifth Republic and became its first president in 1959 and he held that position until 1969. He died on 9 November 1970, from a ruptured blood vessel, two weeks prior to his 80th birthday

The Code for this airport is CDG.

Answer: Delhi

Delhi's airport is situated in the capital region of Delhi about 16 kilometres south west of the city of New Delhi. The original airport was built in 1930, but due to the increase in passengers, operations were moved. Air traffic increased once again, and a new terminal was constructed and opened in 1986 with the name "Indira Gandhi International Airport". The airport handles approximately 46 million passengers each year. The airport covers an area of 5,220 acres (2,110 hectares).

Inddira Priyadarshini Gandhi, born in 1917, was the daughter and only child of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharial Nehru, who led India's struggle for independence from British rule. He was the first Prime Minister of India. Indira studied at the Viswa Bharati University of Calcutta and later at Oxford University in Britain. However, upon the onset of World War II she left Oxford without finishing her studies. She was plagued with ill-health during her life.

She became her father's personal assistant when he was Prime Minister and following his death in 1964, she was appointed to the Indian Upper House as Minister of Information and Broadcasting. She was elected Prime Minister in 1966. She was assassinated in October 1984 when two of her bodyguards shot her in the garden of the Prime Minister's residence. Thirty-one bullets were fired at her; 23 passed through her and seven were trapped inside. She served three consecutive terms as India's Prime Minister, 1966-1977, and a fourth term from 1980 to her death in 1984.

The Code for this airport is DEL.

Answer: Sydney

Sydney Kingsford-Smith International Airport is the busiest airport in Australia, with an average of 36 million passengers and over 289,000 aircraft movements in a year. The busiest international routes into and out of Sydney Airport are to New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, Thailand, Fiji, United Kingdom, China and Japan.

Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith (nicknamed Smithy), was born in 1897 in Brisbane, Queensland. He started out as an engineering apprentice and in 1915 he enlisted in the 1st AIF (Australian Army) and was sent to Gallipoli. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and won his pilot wings in 1917. After being shot down, his injuries were such that half of his left foot had to be amputated and he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in battle. When the war ended he and one of his friends formed a flying joy-riding service in the north of England. He travelled to the US, working as a barnstormer, and returned to Australia in 1921, where he flew airmail services. He became one of Australia's first airline pilots, flying for the newly formed West Australian Airways. He began planning a flight across the Pacific Ocean.

In May 1928, Kingsford-Smith, along with a crew of four, set out from Oakland, California, in an attempt to be the first to fly across the Pacific Ocean to Australia, which they succeeded to do in three stages: Oakland to Hawaii (27 hours 25 minutes at 87.54 mph); Hawaii to Suva, Fiji (34 hours 30 minutes, 91.45 mph); and Suva to Australia (20 hours, 84.15 mph) and then a further 110 miles from where they landed in Australia to Brisbane. The approximate total distance was 7,187 miles. In 1928 he made the first non-stop flight across Australia. He then flew in his aeroplane "The Southern Cross" from Australia to New Zealand. Whilst trying to break the speed record from England to Australia in 1935, his plane disappeared between India and Singapore and neither his nor his co-pilot John Thompson Pethybridge's bodies were recovered.

The Code for this airport is SYD.

Answer: Durban

Construction of the King Shaka International Airport in Durban began in 1973 but because of downturn in the economy, building was halted in 1982. However construction recommenced in the late 1990s but was again halted, this time because of disputes. The project recommenced in 2004, but once again stopped until 2007. It was officially named King Shaka International Airport on 2 February 2010.

Shaka kaSenzangakhona (aka Shaka Zulu) was a Zulu king. He was born in 1787 and died in 1828. He was responsible for uniting many tribes into the Zulu Kingdom. He made many enemies during his reign and survived a couple of assassination attempts. However, some time in 1828, two of his half-bothers killed him.

The Code for this airport is DUR.

Answer: Krakow

Previously a military airport, the Balice airport opened for civilian aviation in 1968 and the first passenger terminal was built there in 1988. A new terminal was constructed and that opened in 1993, and more work was carried out in 1998 when it was given its name. On-going work has been carried out since then. John Paul II International airport carries over three million passengers a year and is the second largest in Poland, the largest being in Warsaw which, again, is named for a famous person, Frederick Chopin.

Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born in 1920. His family moved to Krakow in 1938, where he attended university and studied languages and philology. He was interested in drama and performed with theatrical groups. He could speak 12 languages. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland the University was closed, as all able-bodied men were required to work. In 1942 he began his studies to join the priesthood in the clandestine underground seminary. He was finally ordained as a priest on 1 November 1946. He continued with his studies, earning several doctorates.

He was appointed Bishop of Krakow in 1958 when he was 38 years old, thus becoming the youngest Polish Bishop at that time. In 1964 he was appointed Archbishop of Krakow and in 1967 he was promoted to the Sacred College of Cardinals, and in 1978 was elected Pope, choosing the name John Paul II. He survived two assassination attempts one in 1981, when he was severely wounded, and the other in 1982. He was also the subject of an Al-Qaeda funded plot during a visit to the Philippines in 1995. After serving as Pope for over twenty-five years, he died on 2 April 2005. Before falling into a coma, his last words were "Allow me to depart to the house of the Father". He was a few weeks short of his 85th birthday.

The Code for this airport is KRK.

Answer: Liverpool John Lennon Airport

The first scheduled flights at Speke Airport commenced in 1930. It was taken over by the RAF during World War II, and many bombers were built there. One of the fastest air-to-air "kills" in the Battle of Britain, took place over Speke airport. After the war the airport resumed its civilian operations, and the number of passengers using the airport increased. In 1966 a new runway was opened and further extensions were carried out.

In 2002 the airport was renamed as the Liverpool John Lennon Airport and further reconstruction took place with plans for the airport to reach maximum growth by 2030.

John Winston Lennon was born on 9 October 1940 in Liverpool, and as one of the founding members of the Beatles, he and the other three members are amongst the most famous people in the world. His first band was known as the "Quarrymen" who, after a few name-changes, eventually became "The Beatles". And the rest, as they say, is history. John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, were returning to their New York apartment when he was shot four times in the back by Mark David Chapman. Chapman was found guilty of second-degree murder and was given a 20 years to life gaol sentence. John Lennon was cremated and his ashes were scatted by Yoko Ono in New York's Central Park.

The Code for this airport is LPL.