The ego has landed: Trump wants airport named in his honour


Donald Trump reckons he deserves his name on an airport. Photo: AP
Ready for Donald J Trump Airport in Palm Beach County?
The infamously egomaniacal soon-to-be-ex-president was grounded for good by voters at the Nov 3 election, but his hopes for what he regards as a fitting tribute to his single term in the Oval office are soaring.
Reports are circulating the President, who is set to leave office on January 20, has been asking aides and advisers what it takes to get an airport named in his honour, the Daily Beast reports.
“We don’t comment on private conversations,” said deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere.
But since Palm Beach International is just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago where Trump, his wife and son Barron are expected to live, it seems the most likely airport he’d eye for a renaming in his honour.
Can’t rule out Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, either. Both are also not far from Trump family outings in his proposed adopted home base.
Melania Trump reportedly toured Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale recently as a potential school for teenaged Barron.
Daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner bought a $US30 million ($A39 million) Indian Creek Village plot of land in Miami-Dade County earlier in December.

Mar-a-Lago’s gilded pleasure place will likely be the Trumps’ roost.Photo: Getty
Christian Ziegler, a top official with the Republican Party of Florida, suggested a Palm Beach International renaming to Trump International Airport.
As such, it “would be the South Florida gateway for the former president’s adoring fans”, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
A spokeswoman for Palm Beach International told the paper the airport hadn’t been approached about a name change.
South Florida could also figure as the location of a presidential library, reports say.
“We should absolutely be looking at Florida for a presidential library. It would be a fantastic economic generator,” Ziegler said.
The library may be an easier project to accomplish than an airport. Florida a conservative state: check. Its 29 electoral votes went to Trump after he garnered more votes in the state than president-elect Joe Biden.
However Palm Beach went for Biden, who received 56.1 per cent of the popular vote in November’s presidential election. Biden also won Miami-Dade with 53.4 per cent and Broward with 64.6 per cent.
Trump did carry Florida Keys, though, with 53.5 per cent of the popular vote, but Monroe’s little airport isn’t the international mega-site Trump would likely favour.
If he should get an airport, he’d join the ranks of 10 former presidents: Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Illinois), Theodore Roosevelt (Dickinson, North Dakota), Dwight Eisenhower (Wichita, Kansas), John F. Kennedy (New York), Gerald R. Ford (Grand Rapids, Michigan), George Washington and Ronald Reagan (sharing Virginia’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) and George H.W. Bush (Houston).
Also, in 2012, Adams Field in Little Rock, Arkansas, was renamed Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.
Jimmy Carter has a regional airport named for him in Georgia. And Barack Obama? Not yet.
-with AAP