The three navigation points above Palm Beach International Airport that were named after Donald Trump will be renamed, according to a statement Wednesday released by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
FAA spokesperson Laura Brown noted that the agency usually tries to pick names that are “noncontroversial,” but Trump’s growing notoriety is making the FAA shy away from using his name going forward.
In 2010, the FAA renamed several navigation coordination points after Trump’s TV show, “The Apprentice.” The three points were renamed DONLD, TRMMP, and UFIRD.
Two other points were named IVNKA ONE, after Trump’s daughter, and BUFIT ONE, after rock musician Jimmy Buffett.
The agency noted that the changes will take several months to be executed.
The controversy over the naming of the coordination points isn’t sudden. Even when the coordinates were named after Trump in 2010, not everyone appreciated the changes.
“We actually have had reports of people refusing to fly these departures because they are so offended by the fact that Trump has been memorialized,” Paul Agnew, then-head of the airport’s advisory committee on noise, said during a meeting in 2010.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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