Airport Eponymophilia Trivia Quiz

Answer: John F. Kennedy International Airport

Just over 1000 air miles from Little Rock Airport, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is in Arlington, Virginia and serves Washington DC. George Bush Intercontinental Airport Houston is in the next state to Arkansas, in Texas, 420 air miles away.
Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport is 455 air miles from Little Rock. John F. Kennedy International Airport is 1250 air miles away, making it the furthermost away.
Since aviation became a way of life in the 1930s, every president who served before George W. Bush has had at least one airport named after him. The exception is Richard Nixon.

Answer: Ajaccio, Corsica

All the locations are connected to Napoleon. St Helena, a tiny remote outpost in the South Atlantic has no airport. Elba, a small island off the coast of Italy has an airport but the runway is only long enough to handle regional turbo-props. (Napoleon was exiled to both these places). Napoleon received schooling and training in Paris but,the two major airports are named after a former President and a location (Orly). Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, a French island in the Mediterranean Sea, and indeed, the airport there is named after him.

This airport is the main airport on the island and is served by Air France and is the base for Air Corsica which fly a combination of small narrow body airliners and regional prop-jets, mainly to ports on the French mainland.

Answer: Amelia Earhart Airport

Queen Alia of Jordon was queen for five years until her death in 1977 aged 29. Indira Gandhi International Airport, named after India's first female female prime minister, serves New Dehli in India. Benazir Bhutto International Airport, named after Pakistan's first female president, serves the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza is the Albanian capital's airport (How many thought Mother Teresa Airport would have been located in Kolkata?). All three of these airports are within an eight hour flight of Jordan.
Amelia Earhart Airport is a tiny general aviation airfield at Atchison, Kansas, near Kansas City. Earhart was born in Atchison. One would have thought there would have been a larger airport named after her given her accomplishments. The nearest airport that could accommodate a trans-Atlantic flight is Kansas City Airport, and even then no direct flight would be theoretically possible as it is beyond the range of any airliner. With a stopover en-route, the flight would take over 19 hours. (Note. Surprisingly, not many major airports are named after aviation pioneers. Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney, Australia, Wright Brothers Airport in Dayton Ohio, and Lindbergh Field in San Diego California are three exceptions.
Four of the five women named in this question died unnatural deaths. Ironically two died in aircraft crashes and two, tragically were assassinated.

Answer: Italy

Italy has no less than 14 major airports named after people. Airports named after explorers include Marco Polo Airport in Venice, Amerigo Vespucci Airport in Florence, and Cristoforo Colombo Airport in Genoa. Galileo Galilei was one of the world's most accomplished astronomers.

The airport at Pisa is named after him. An airport named after a film director though, is arguably unique. However, Rimini, a medium sized city on the Italian east coast, north-east of Rome, is a large provincial airport named after Federico Fellini, one of the world's most renowned film directors of the Silver Screen.

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, sculptor, mathematician, engineer, architect, scientist and inventor, amongst many other talents. Best known for painting, around 1480, he developed two designs for flying machines. The first was an ornithopter, a design based on flapping wings imitating birds. Da Vinci was the first to realise that man would never be strong enough to fly from flapping wing-like projections so he developed mechanical methods in his diagrams that gave the necessary mechanical leverage.

His second design was based on a helical rotor which theoretically gave aerodynamic lift. He did not build any of his machines so it was not possible to determine if they would have been successful. However his ideas were held half a millennium ahead of anyone else. Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport had the curious distinction of being opened twice.

Its first runway was built (and opened without a terminal) in 1956 to relieve congestion in Rome's Ciampino Airport. This was especially important with the Olympic Games being held in Rome in 1960.

The second runway and terminal were ready for the Games but the official opening was in 1961. It has always been Rome's busiest airport since 1961.

Answer: No

Poland like Italy is fond of naming its airports after its own famous countrymen. Poland has at least seven such airports. We started the day's journey in the centre of the country at Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport, named after the composer, flew south to Krakow where the airport is named after a Pope; John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice. We then took a very short flight of less than 200 km north west to Copernicus Airport in Wroc³aw, named after Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), a mathematician and astronomer who made one of the most significant scientific findings when he published that the sun as the centre of the universe not the earth. Our last flight was a trip of 450 km north to Gdansk where the airport is named after Lech Walesa, a trade unionist who organised, out of Gdansk's shipyards, the Soviet Bloc's first trade union called Solidarity, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and subsequently was elected as Polish President 1990-1995. In our trip today we never left Poland, so our passport was not necessary.

Answer: O'Hare International Airport and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport

Edward O'Hare (1917-1943), known as Butch, was an American Navy pilot who was considered the US Navy's first flying ace in WWII. He received the Medal of Honor for his courage, the first time this was awarded to a Navy man. He was shot down in 1943 and his body or plane was never found. In 1949, the Chicago Airport was renamed O'Hare International Airport. Billy Bishop was a Canadian (1894-1956) who was that country's first flying ace in WWI, credited with 72 kills. He became the first Canadian air vice-marshal in WWII. Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is a small airport on one of the Toronto Islands just offshore from the Toronto city centre. The island can only be accessed by ferry. The island is only big enough to to allow a runway long enough to handle turboprops but it is more convenient for commuter flights than its big brother, Toronto Pearson International Airport, named after former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, 20 km to the northwest.
Charles de Gaulle was a French WWII hero but Will Rogers was Oklahoma's favorite son and he was not a war hero but a muti-talented entertainer. Will Rogers World Airport is Oklahoma City's major airport.
Long Island Airport is named after General Douglas MacArthur but New York City's Fiorello La Guardia was its mayor in World War II.
Santos Dumont Airport is Rio de Janeiro's second airport and is named after Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian aviation pioneer who was credited with the first powered heavy than air flight in 1906. Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía Venezuela, is named after Simon Bolívar who was a military leader who helped Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru become sovereign states and achieve independence from Spain.

Answer: Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming International Airport is halfway between Kingston and Montego Bay in Jamaica in the Caribbean. Whilst Fleming was British, he negotiated a contract with his English employer where he could spend every January and February in his house, "Goldeneye" overlooking the sea in Jamaica. It was here that he wrote all his James Bond novels from 1952-1965.
Liverpool John Lennon Airport honoured John Lennon in 2001 with the addition of his name to Liverpool (Speke) Airport, an airport that has been operating since 1930, mainly as a RAF base until the end of WWII. This airport was the first in Britain to be named after a person
Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield is the second largest airport in Yorkshire behind Leeds/Bradford Airport. Adding the "Robin Hood" moniker created a marketing opportunity if a rather controversial one. Locals claim that the Sherwood Forest is close to Doncaster than to Nottingham and it was the Sheriff who came from Nottingham, not Robin Hood.
George Best Belfast City Airport is the second biggest airport in Belfast. It is much closer to the city centre than the larger airport, Belfast International, but it is still large enough to offer jetliner flights to major centres in Britain and charter jets to warmer places like Spain and Portugal. George Best, Manchester United and Northern Island Soccer player was honoured by having his name added in 2006.

Answer: Louis Armstrong International Airport

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is the only airport of the five listed in the US, New Orleans, Louisiana to be precise. So given we will be leaving from Liverpool (Of course!), this route would be the longest. You are going to need a wide body jet, as while narrow body jets such as Boeing 737 and 757s and Airbus 319/320 can cross the Atlantic, the routes are at the "edges" such as St Johns to Dublin or London. Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport, Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport and W. A. Mozart Airport in Salzburg are all within a three hour direct flight from Liverpool.

Answer: Memphis International Airport

The Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority executives cited in 2012 that many important people besides Elvis, such as Martin Luther King Jr, came from Memphis and therefore no one person should be the eponym. This gives Tupelo Regional Airport a chance to name their airport after the great man. However it should be said that this airport is tiny and only facilitates general aviation flights because of its runway length.
There is no airport at Pasadena. This city is served by the Bob Hope (ah-hah!) Airport in Burbank California. However if this airport did not have an eponym, Beach Boys Airport would be a popular alternative.
Seatle-Tacoma Airport is known as Sea-Tac (Indeed the small city, SeaTac, it is located in, is ironically named after the airport). However, should it ever divest itself of Sea-Tac, I think the Hendrix-Cobain International airport would be an excellent idea.