By Susan Ladd susan.ladd@greensboro.com Much scorn has been heaped upon “Central North Carolina International Airport,” the new name for the airport located in our fair city. The name has been reviled in letters to the editor and ridiculed on social media. One local citizen actually started a petition to stop the name change. As of Thursday, that effort had more than 5,100 signatures. It was not scorn, but amusement I felt when I heard the new moniker. It reminded me of the first time I visited Denton, N.C., for what was then known as the Fly-In and Threshers’ Reunion. You couldn’t actually fly in to the Denton Airport on anything larger than a Cessna, but you could take a plane ride there every Fourth of July, starting in 1970. “Denton International Airport,” as festival co-founder Brown Loflin called it in an interview with me in the early 1980s, was a tongue-in-cheek moniker for the large, grassy field at his farm that featured an open-air hangar. “Central North Carolina International Airport” conjures up a similar picture — “Petticoat Junction” with wings. It’s the opposite of what my grandmother would have called “puttin’ on airs.” It makes us appear less than what we are instead of more. Not that its former name, “Piedmont Triad International Airport,” was much better. The airport authority, which I suppose is now known as the Central North Carolina Airport Authority, changed the name because so many fliers had no idea what “Piedmont” or “Triad” meant. “Central North Carolina” probably doesn’t improve the situation and makes the location more nondescript to residents of the state, who know very well what “Piedmont” and “Triad” represent. Terms such as “central” or “mid-state” don’t relate to anyone’s understanding of North Carolina’s geography. The state’s primary regions are known as mountain, piedmont and coastal. Even when we talk about the state in terms of Eastern North Carolina and Western North Carolina, we generally use terms like “Triangle,” “Triad,” and “Sandhills” to refer to the broad expanse in the middle, precisely because they are well-defined regions. Out-of-state fliers looking at a map of North Carolina still may have trouble figuring out the location of the Central North Carolina Airport, because the cities in the central region include not only Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem, but also Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Fayetteville. Because several of these areas already have much better-known airports, maybe we should call ours the International Airport Between Raleigh and Charlotte — IABRC. Or if we want to be more accurate geographically, the Northwest Central North Carolina International Airport — NWCNCI. Or we could call it the International Airport With No International Flights — IAWNIF. In a quest to be more specific, “Central North Carolina International Airport” is actually more obscure. The juxtaposition of “Central North Carolina” and “International” adds to the dissonance. What the heck is Central North Carolina to someone from London, China, South America or even California, for that matter? And frankly, it’s a stretch to say Greensboro is at the center of the state, either vertically or horizontally, geologically or geographically. The U.S. Geological Survey puts the center of the state at 12.7 miles north of Sanford, in Chatham County. The Army Corps of Engineers, using satellite technology, locates the center of North Carolina in the Montgomery County town of Star. There even is a plaque there to mark the spot. Nobody put an airport there, because there was no need. People don’t fly to regions; they fly to cities. That may have been the thinking in the state’s capital when someone named that airport “Raleigh-Durham International Airport,” acknowledging the two major cities that anchor the airport, instead of “Research Triangle International Airport.” Taking that approach, we would end up with the Greensboro-Winston-Salem International Airport, which is a lot more descriptive than “Central North Carolina” and helps locate the airport by its cities instead of its region. Yes, it does leave out High Point, the third link in the Triad. Then again, RDU left out Chapel Hill, the third link in Triangle. Or, as so many readers have pointed out, the airport code that you’ll find on your luggage tag is “GSO,” for Greensboro. It’s simple, it’s recognizable and it’s memorable. Although it does seem like “puttin’ on airs,” if we must retain the “international” claim, we could call it Greensboro International Airport. Using the name of the city locates the airport and helps the branding of both. Just as a horse designed by committee can turn out to be a camel, a brand designed by committee can turn out to be just as gangly, awkward and hard to classify. If the goal is to put our region on the map, “Central North Carolina International Airport” does the opposite. The airport authority should try again — this time with public input. Contact Susan Ladd at 336-373-7006 or susan.ladd@greensboro.com, or follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/susankladd or on Twitter at @susanladdNR.