By Humphrey Carter

Copyright majorcadailybulletin

In February, 2022, an online poll started calling for Palma airport to be renamed in honor of the recent Australian Open champion, Rafa Nadal and now the debate about renaming the airport is back on the table. The Balearic Cultural Organisation (OCB) has asked the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to change the official name of ‘Palma de Mallorca Airport’ to ‘Palma Airport’, which has been the official and legal name of the city since 1988.

The president of the organisation, Antoni Llabrés, has asked Minister Óscar Puente to bring the name of the airport into line with the law and explained that ‘Palma’ is the official name according to Regional Decree 36/1988 of 14 April, currently in force. According to Llabrés, the city of Palma is internationally known and does not need any addition to be correctly identified without causing confusion.

Llabrés stressed that, except for Palma, there is no other case of an airport in Spain that bears the name of the city where it is located with the addition of the island, region or autonomous community in which it is located for identification purposes. Examples of this would be the imaginary “Barcelona Airport of Catalonia”, “Malaga Airport of Andalusia” or “Bilbao Airport of the Basque Country”, or “Zaragoza of Aragon”.

He added that, from an operational and commercial point of view, the IATA (PMI) and ICAO (LEPA) codes leave no room for doubt. The president of the OCB pointed out that “Palma de Mallorca” does not correspond to the historical name of the city as set out in Article 7 of the Statute of Autonomy (“The capital of the Balearic Islands is the city of Palma”) or in Law 23/2006 on Palma’s status as capital.

He emphasises that the only official name, both for the city and its municipal area, is ‘Palma’.
The OCB cites the preamble to Autonomous Decree 36/2011, according to which ‘the place names of the Balearic Islands are a collective heritage that must be safeguarded as part of the linguistic and cultural heritage’. ‘As a vehicle for information about our language, our history and our geography, it constitutes a fundamental pillar of our country’s cultural identity,’ it adds.

Furthermore, the Statute of Autonomy of the Balearic Islands establishes that the official names of municipalities and place names are the exclusive competence of the Autonomous Community, and the 1986 Standardisation Law establishes that it is the responsibility of the Government, with the advice of the University of the Balearic Islands, to determine the official names and place names. The OCB has requested the change from the president of AENA, Mauricio Lucena, and has met with the airport director, Tomás Melgar, and the head of the airport director’s office, Diego Llorca, to ask for their support for this initiative.