Since obviously not enough has been said and written about the new, dumb-as-a-doornail appellation recently attached to our poor airport, here's my take: Never in my 18 years in this job have I seen an issue on which every letter to the editor was in absolute agreement. Not one person has come to the defense of that multi-syllabic exercise in vague dullness, Central North Carolina International Airport, conceived either as a cruel joke or an unfortunate side effect from inhaling jet fumes. The airport formerly known as Piedmont Triad International deserves better. In Greensboro, where nobody agrees on anything and where even good ideas can be a hard sell, such unanimity is unheard of. To be clear, everyone who has written a letter to the News & Record so far dislikes the name. A lot. Even some reliably gung-ho Greensboro boosters have scratched their heads. Six thousand people signed an online petition. Meanwhile, the Airport Authority had remained silent on the gale-force blowback from the public, which showed no signs of abating, either in volume or ferocity. Until last week. The authority announced that it was reopening the name change to "constructive suggestions." "If there is a better name out there we're going to ask the public," Airport Authority Chairman Steve Showfety told me Thursday morning. Showfety said only one thing remains certain: The name will not revert to PTI. "I could not, in good conscience, go back to that name," Showfety said. "The results speak for themselves." In defense of the new name, Showfety added, "We did follow the same process that the authority did the previous time it changed the name." But that was 30 years ago. We don't do things that way anymore. At least we shouldn't. That's why what is harder to swallow than the name itself was how it came to be. Basically, it was the handiwork of seven people in a room. To be fair, giving the airport a name that pleases the multiple communities it serves isn't easy. "We're a several-body representative group," Showfety said, "and there are limitations on what board members are going to permit one another to do." They would be wise to permit one another to do better than this. This is not the first time a rebranding has fallen flat. Cable TV's SciFi Channel became SyFy, not realizing that term already was being widely used as street slang for syphilis. Tropicana redesigned its orange juice cartons and saw sales plummet by 20 percent. The embattled private-security firm Blackwater became Xe, pronounced "Zee." (Makes you already feel warm and fuzzy about soldiers for hire, doesn't it?) Aol became aol., with a period at the end, for whatever that was worth, which became Oath after that. And then there was New Coke. But you would think that the Triad, of all communities, would have learned by now that closed-door decisions rarely play well with the public. For instance, the Tanger Center for the Performing Arts grew out of a community task force that intentionally included skeptics and critics. As long and hard as it's been transforming that facility from a concept into reality, there's no denying the unprecedented amounts of private money it raised. Odds are that wouldn't have happened without the early commitment to transparency. Before that, a consortium of local foundations, Action Greensboro, invited the general public to take part in discussions on how to revive a city economy that was meandering into danger. To be sure, openness can be messy. But transparency on the front end can prevent much more serious problems on the back end. The Airport Authority seems to realize that now. If only grudgingly. A news release suggests that seeking public input was part of the plan all along. And Showfety insists "a silent majority" supports the Central North Carolina name. "I know there are people that do support it," he said. My advice? Come clean. Admit you meant well but made a bad call. And fix it. After all, when rebranding goes wrong in the corporate world, it's not unusual to see do-overs. Tropicana ditched its new cartons. Netflix abandoned an inexplicable plan to rename its mail-order DVD business Qwikster. And nobody's selling or drinking New Coke anymore. ------------------------------------- Comments: Showfety insists "a silent majority" supports the Central North Carolina name. "I know there are people that do support it," he said. Maybe one of them will show up on January 23rd. Nicky Smith