Letter: How about Vail/Eagle Regional Airport?

Naming Eagle County’s airport Colorado International Airport or Rocky Mountain International Airport would be silly. The airport should be named so that people know where it is.

If you’re flying from Dallas/Fort Worth, for example, you wouldn’t say, “I’m going to Colorado International Airport”. You would say, “I’m going to Vail” or “I’m going to Eagle County.” Eagle County’s airport is not international either because it doesn’t have international commercial flights.

This situation reminds me of Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Penn. That airport was originally called ABE after the three cities in the Lehigh Valley — Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton — thus ABE. Unlike our airport, that airport has international flights from Toronto.

Eventually they changed the name of that airport to “Lehigh Valley” more than likely because the general public didn’t know where “ABE” was. The point: Let’s not use a name that doesn’t mean anything to the public.

In the case of Eagle County, the goal is to have a regional airport, serving a broader area including, perhaps, Eagle, Garfield, Pitkin and Routt counties. Therefore, I believe the name should include the word regional. My first preference would be “Vail/Eagle Regional Airport” because Vail, after all, is the prominent brand here. The public knows where Vail is.

I also think the name Eagle County Regional Airport would work because over time, Eagle County will become more recognized.

Editor’s note: The official name of the county’s airport actually is the Eagle County Regional Airport.