Every once in awhile I post an article not necessarily for the 12MC audience, intended more as a public service to people who might come to the site for a highly specific purpose only a single time. I’m not always sure why I receive sudden website traffic surges, however I try to be accommodating. Often it happens because of an Internet quiz or a crossword puzzle, or even because of a classroom homework assignment. This time the query related to airports named after fictional characters.
Currently — and this could change at any moment or differ from person-to-person — an article from Twelve Mile Circle occupies the top result for a Google search on that phrase. We should thank loyal reader Peter for our fortunate result. His comment generated this recent round of hits.
The original article, Studios to Towns, referenced places related to the movie industry. That led to comments about airports named after Bob Hope, John Wayne, and various other showbiz personalities. It then segued to fictional characters after meandering a bit. Peter mentioned Robin Hood and Don Quijote (or the more familiar Quixote in the English version).
If you arrived on the website looking for “Airports Named after Fictional Characters” consider the answer Robin Hood. Feel free to move away from the website and go to the next question if you like. I won’t take it personally. If you want to explore the possibilities in a little more detail including a couple of surprises, then pull up a seat and stick around for awhile.
Robin Hood
I thought the best answer might be Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield (map). It handled considerably more passenger traffic than any other alternative. Doncaster sits practically on its doorstep and Sheffield sits less than twenty miles away. Robin Hood handled 700,000 passengers in 2012 with several regular international flights to places like Spain, Poland and Egypt.
However, the name came with a minor controversy. Some people in Nottingham complained that Robin Hood belonged to them, not to Doncaster farther north. Doncaster advocates countered that their city aligned more closely with the geographic placement of Sherwood Forest. The official 12MC position: it doesn’t matter, he wasn’t a real person. At best, he was a composite of many different outlaws.
[UPDATE: the airport dropped the Robin Hood branding in December 2016]
Don Quijote
Aeropuerto Don Quijote in Spain presented a seriously messed-up situation. Officially it went by Ciudad Real Central Airport. That caveat made it difficult to consider it an airport named for a fictional character. The second issue presented something tremendously more problematic. The airport closed in 2012 after only three years of operation. It went into bankruptcy. That made the question of its name completely moot.
Huffington Post noted in Ciudad Real International Airport Sits Abandoned In Central Spain (July 2012) that airport construction cost 1.1 billion Euros, “offered a high-speed rail connection to Madrid some 150 miles away and was meant to handle roughly 600,000 passengers annually.” BBC reported on speculation that the airport may have been designed to fail from the beginning.
“When a local construction magnate came up with the idea of an airport in Ciudad Real, money was sloshing around Spain for public works… ‘You might think the airport failed because of the crisis, but I am convinced that the shareholders never thought it (the airport) would work. The only profit in this airport was the building of it,’ says local investigative journalist Carlos Otto. ‘The construction itself of the airport provided the first profit for the investors because they signed contracts with their own construction companies’.”
Aeropuerto Don Quijote doesn’t quality for the list at the moment. Perhaps it could be reopened someday and we might be able to look at it again.
[UPDATE: the airport reopened in September 2019, primarily as an airplane maintenance and storage facility]
Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin
I found a couple of airports on my own.
The first one recognized the fictional Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin. Actually, it referenced the nearby town named for Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin. Longtime 12MC readers already know the story. The Canadian town and its airport got named Flin Flon after the title character of a particularly dreadful 1905 pulp-fiction novel. Flin Flon, the town, straddles the border between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Flin Flon, the airport, falls completely within Manitoba.
Two airlines serve Flin Flon Airport, Calm Air and Bearskin, with regular passenger service to Winnipeg. The city said their runway could accommodate a Boeing 737. I don’t know how many jets of that size need to land near a town of fewer than 6,000 residents. Nonetheless the runway exists and could be used should passenger demand require it.
Ajax
I stretched things on the final example. It’s a heliport. At a hospital. It has a Canadian Location Identifier (CPE2) although it does not have an International Air Transport Association airport code. That makes sense as I think about it some more. Nobody will need to check baggage to their final destination for any of these flights.
Ajax Heliport serves Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering Hospital in Ontario. The heliport got its name from the nearby Town of Ajax, in turn named for the HMS Ajax, a light cruiser that saw service in the Second World War. Going back farther, the HMS Ajax derived from a hero of Greek mythology that appeared in the Iliad. Got all that? Ajax, the heliport, for Ajax, the hospital, for Ajax the town, for Ajax the ship, for Ajax the fictional Greek hero.
I welcome additions to the list.
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